


Staring into the Sun

by Tiara_of_Sapphires



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, F/M, Incest?? I guess I mean it hasn't been confirmed yet, Introspection, Memory Loss, Mental Torture, Mild Sexual Content, Recovered Memories, Rey Kenobi, Snoke needs to stop, will update tags with each chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-05-08 08:23:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5490368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiara_of_Sapphires/pseuds/Tiara_of_Sapphires
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SPOILERS FOR TFA.</p><p>Kylo Ren was on a war path. That is, until he met a certain scavenger on Takodana. Then, everything changed.</p><p>Rey must train to become a Jedi. And the lingering feeling for a certain Sith had given her a new mission.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw The Force Awakens and have thrown myself in the (wonderful) trash that is Kylo Ren/Rey. It is not confirmed to be an incestuous relationship and I headcanon Rey as being descendant of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Let me live my life, okay?  
> Enjoy!  
> Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars or any of its characters. This is just for my own amusement and not for profit.

He did not want to kill her. He knew her name, but did not want to use it, did not want to make her more human, more enticing for him. She was the scavenger, the girl, _her_.

This day was not going his way, not at all.

Kylo Ren saw courage in her on Takodana. The Force was strong in her as she fired her blaster at him, attempting to flee into the wooden forest. But she was not strong enough. How could she armed only with a blaster? So much raw potential, just barely awoken.  

A wiser man would have executed her and looked for the droid. But something clenched around his chest, staying his hand. He did not need the droid. He had this scavenger and the map that was hidden in her memories.

He knocked her unconscious with a wave of the Force and he lifted her in his arms. She was so light, almost fragile as he carried her into the ship. He did not allow anyone to touch her on the way back to the Starkiller base, keeping his eyes on her, entranced.

When he took off his helmet for her, he may have seen something other than fear flicker across her face.

After he tried to get in her mind, he was supposed to take what he wanted and end it. But she fought back. She was strong with the Force, as strong as him. She found his hidden fear so easily, exposed him, dominated him even though she was in the most powerless position.

_You are afraid you won’t be as strong as Darth Vader._

She was full of the Light and he was like a moth to the flame.

But of course, of course she managed to get away. She had so much potential in the Force that he might as well have left her unshackled and with the cell door open.

That knowledge had not stopped the anger boiling up inside of him. Hux was going to throw a fit over the wrecked interrogation room. Not that Kylo cared. None of that mattered anymore.

She was still on board. He could feel the gentle buzz in his mind, not enough for him to track her down, but enough to know that she was still there.

There were others. He could feel them too. The Wookie, the traitorous Stormtrooper FN-2187, and the smuggler.

The heartbroken scream that escaped her mouth when he murd—execu— _killed_ Han Solo echoed in his mind as he trailed after her and FN-2187. When he looked into her mind, he saw her affection for the man. He almost felt regret over it,  not only because Han Solo was his father, but the act made him even more the monster she thought he was.

Kylo Ren intercepted the duo with ease, despite the pain in his side from Chewbacca’s bowcaster. He could feel the blood tacky against his skin.

She called him a monster.

Kylo struck out with the Force, hitting the scavenger dead-on, sending her small frame flying into a tree with a loud crash. But, he did not want to hurt her, not badly at least. He grabbed her with the Force, gently setting her down in the snow, a strange juxtaposition after he brutally threw her. She would forgive him, eventually. He would make it up to her, once the Resistance was destroyed.

The Stormtrooper yelled out her name, sprinting towards her.

“Traitor!” Kylo screamed. The less rational part of him screamed, “Don’t touch her!”

He picked up Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber in defense of the two. Kylo’s lip curled in disgust. How dare this nobody wield _his_ weapon? FN-2187 held his own against Kylo, but not for long, cut down and the lightsaber flying into the snow.

Kylo Ren was victorious, going to claim what belonged to him. He reached out with the Force to claim the blade. It shook in the snow, as if in contemplation. Finally it moved.

But the lightsaber did not go to the Knight of Ren. It moved past him, into the hand of the scavenger Jedi.

The red and blue blades crossed again, this time between two Force-sensitives, between Dark and Light.

She was inexperienced, on the defensive. Kylo felt the Force swirling around her.

In a whirlwind, her back was to the cliff, their blades locked close together. He was so close to her, close enough that he could kiss her. He had to resist the urge, focus on the mission. She was the Light, she was a threat. She would either be converted or killed. That was the way of the Dark Side. That was the fate of all Jedi.

He offered her, offered to teach her, almost pleading with her. Together, they would be unstoppable. He wanted to consume her, he did not want to have to kill her. It would have been better if she went to the Dark instead of him being unwittingly dragged back into the Light.

“I can show you the ways of the Force!” he shouted.

He could. He could teach her everything that he knows. They could be the most powerful Force-users in all the galaxy.

The scavenger stared at him and repeated, “The Force?”

He watched as she closed her eyes. The Force moved around her with a blinding intensity, cloaking her with power and seeping into every cell of her being.

And then she struck against him. She fought him with a renewed ferocity, moving with fluidity and grace. Now he was on the defensive. The plan was gone. There was no plan. She was Light and she was beautiful in it. He wanted her to consume him.

That was when he was truly lost.

She wore him down, her lightsaber biting into his leg, through his shoulder.

And then they were locked again, as if in a kind of dance, his hand gripping her wrist, her hand gripping his. She was strong, the Force giving her the strength of ten men as she pushed his lightsaber into the snow. The jagged red blade steamed in the snow. Rey broke his hold on her hand and brought her blue blade against the hilt, breaking the weapon in two.

Blue light flashed across Kylo’s face, searing into his skin, and he fell into the snow.

The kingdom was falling apart. The First Order and all of its hard work put into Starkiller was breaking up under their feet. Hundreds of lives were being snuffed out. And he could not bring himself to care.

She had beaten him. His lightsaber was destroyed, his body injured. She held all of the cards, she could do anything to him. And that was an almost comforting thought, not being in control of whether or not he lived.

He wanted her to be the one to kill him. Better her than anyone else. She could stab his grandfather’s lightsaber through his heart and watch as the light died in his eyes as he stared at the light in hers. He probably deserved it.

Distantly, he could feel the ground shift and break. And he could feel physical distance suddenly appeared between the two of them. He was going to live another day, provided he did not die of his injuries.

He could feel her panic in the Force, her concern and grief and anger. Part of him hoped that she lingered on the anger, snuffing out the Light and bringing her in the Dark. And part of him wanted her to keep in the Light.

No doubt she was going to return to her friend, that defective Stormtrooper. Jealousy suddenly overwhelmed the pain that his body was in. He should have killed FN-2187 when he had the chance.

As he drifted into unconsciousness, the shadow of a ship descending from the sky, one thought echoed through his mind.

_Rey. Her name is Rey._

...

If, days later, he brought himself off, imagining her lips on his and her body pressing him against his bed, well, Kylo Ren could only hope that maybe she could feel his want through the Force.

Just maybe, she wanted him too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> …Don’t look at me.  
> Please review! It is much appreciated!  
> ~Tiara of Sapphires


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ask and ye shall receive! This takes place where Chapter 1 left off.  
> Holy crap I was not expecting the reception I got for the first chapter! Thank you to everyone who gave me feedback! It warms the cockles of my little writer heart.  
> Enjoy!  
> Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars or any of its characters. This is just for my own amusement and not for profit.

Rey awoke with her heart in her throat and heat low in her belly.

It was the night before she was going to leave with Chewie to find Luke Skywalker. She was going to find him and train to be a Jedi Knight. And now all she could think about was the handsome man with black hair and a pale angular face.

Kylo Ren: the man she defeated on Starkiller. The man who killed, Han Solo, his own father, the only man she could count as a father figure. The man who attacked Finn, greatly injuring him. The man who oversaw the deaths of thousands, millions of people. The man who attacked her multiple times and violated her mind.

She was not supposed to think on him with emotions other than utter hatred, not attraction.

She was kissing him, in her dream, pressed up against his chest like a lover. She felt so good in that dream, unlike anything she had ever experienced before. But the strangest thing was this: it was not her pleasure that she was feeling, it was _his_.

He was thinking of her. When they were mentally connected on Starkiller, the connection through the Force must have lingered.

The Force. She could feel it keenly. Even when she was on Jakku, before her life was forever changed, there was always something there that did not seem normal. Ever since she met BB-8, she was exposed and immersed in something that felt so right and natural like it was breathing.

Resigning herself to another sleepless night, she made her way to the medical bay.

Finn hadn’t woken up, since the attack. His back was sliced open, nearly severing his spine. The doctors put him into a medical coma while his body healed itself.

The chair next to Finn’s bed was occupied, to Rey’s surprise. The occupant turned when he heard her entrance.

“Oh, hello, Rey,” Poe said, blinking blearily at her.

Rey felt suddenly guilty that she woke him up. Poe Dameron was a good man, keeping vigil at Finn’s bedside when he was not on mission. He cared for the former Stormtrooper; that much was obvious.

“Take care of him while I am gone, alright?” Rey said, eyes fixed on the recovering man.

Poe grinned at her. “Of course I will.”

Rey pressed a kiss to Finn’s forehead. He was going to wake up. Even in her inexperience, she could feel his presence in the Force. He was not ready to wake up, not yet.

“I hope he will be awake and well when I return,” she whispered.

When, not if. She will return to the Resistance base. Whether or not she returned the same person remained to be seen.

…

Rey jumped in the cockpit as pain flashed across her side.

Chewie roared in concern. Rey waved him off and she rucked up her tunic, expecting burns or blood, but her skin was unmarred.

She was in the Millennium Falcon. She was safe, as safe as she could be with the First Order still in existence.

She knew the answer to why she felt it: Kylo Ren. He felt this and so she felt it.

Was this intentional? Was he forcing her to feel what he felt?

Part of her wanted to lock him out of her mind. Part of her wanted to comfort him somehow. If he did not feel pain, she would not feel pain.

She was not concerned about him on a selfless level. Not at all.

She did not have time to contemplate it too much. The map was almost at its end.

As soon as they dropped out of hyperspace, a feeling so strong and foreign closed around her heart. It was an ocean planet, dotted with hundreds of islands.

None of them looked like the island Kylo Ren saw when he looked into her mind, none that she could remember. But she knew that this was the place.

Chewie suggested a bio-scan, since it seemed practically impossible for them to find a single man amongst a whole planet. But Rey knew there was another way.

She closed her eyes and reached out with the Force. It was getting easier and easier to use her new-found abilities. Luke Skywalker was like a beacon, emanating a Force signature so strong that it was impossible for her to overlook it. She knew, suddenly, where he was. It was one of the larger islands in the northwest quadrant.

They landed on the shore and Rey set out to find the lost Jedi Master.

It felt so peaceful and familiar in a way like she was coming home. Water crashed on the rocks and the salty air whipped around her.

No wonder Luke Skywalker chose this place to hide. It vibrated with energy, with the Force.

It took a while and a long hike to find the Jedi. She was not sure what she expected when she saw the hooded man with his back to her.

Rey almost spoke up to get his attention, but she knew that he was taking his time, perhaps getting a feel for her in the Force.

He turned and she was not shocked at all. He looked so old and sad with his lined face and scraggly beard.

She took out the lightsaber, his lightsaber, and held it out. “My name is Rey,” she said, voice shaking only slightly.

He looked at the lightsaber, at her, recognition showing in his eyes. Like he recognized the blade, but he also recognized her somehow.

Silence reigned for several moments.

“You should not have come here, Rey,” he said, breaking the silence, his voice rough from little use.

Rey almost recoiled at the statement, the hand holding the lightsaber dropping a little. She came all of this way, people, people she cared about sacrificed so much, she sacrificed so much, and he was dismissing her?

“We—the Resistance—needs your help! The galaxy needs your help! Kylo Ren--” Rey raised her voice.

He interrupted her, “—is my failure. But I will not get involved. I will only make things worse.”

Rey could already tell that he was pulling away. He was going to send her away and she could not allow that to happen. She had gone too far, experienced too much. She was not going to be denied.

“He killed Han!” she burst out in desperation, despair coloring her voice, eyes burning.

Rey watched as the old Jedi’s mask cracked and pure grief washed over him with an intensity that even she could feel.

“Han…Han is dead?” he rasped.

She nodded, a few tears trailing down her cheeks. She cried many tears over Han Solo. He did not deserve what happened to him, to die at the hands of his own son. She wanted to tell him exactly what happened but the words stuck in her throat.

“Leia. I felt her sorrow, I did not realize…” Luke trailed off. “Ben, what have you done?”

Ben. She heard Han call Kylo Ren by that name. So that was the name he was born with. Ben.

Two images flashed before her eyes in quick succession: an old bearded man with kind eyes, standing amongst sandstone and a black-haired baby, swaddled in a crib.

She staggered slightly, blinking. Luke did not say anything, perhaps not even noticing what she witnessed.

Rey spoke up again, “I am here to train to be a Jedi. I feel the Force. I need to be ready to fight.”

She needed to be ready to defend the Resistance. To fight the First Order. To fight the Dark Side. To fight the shadow that lingered in her mind.

She was thinking of getting on her knees and outright begging when something like steely determination replaced the sorrow in the old Jedi, looking every bit the war hero he was lauded to be.

“I will train you.”

 …

“Why is he like this?” she asked, breaking the silence after a long day of training. She did not need to clarify as to who she was referring to.

The meditation was helping a little, his presence becoming a mild irritation that appeared from time to time in the forms of flashes of images and violent emotion. But she still felt him.

Luke sighed.

“Ben was, _is_ , incredibly bright and skilled in the Force. But, he did not know how he fit in the universe. I tried to show him his heritage, how the Force ran through his family. He was particularly interested in his grandfather, Anakin Skywalker.”

“Darth Vader,” Rey supplied.

Luke shrugged. “I tried to downplay the Dark inside my father. But that only made him more curious.”

It did not make sense to Rey. Kylo Ren—Ben had everything. He had parents who loved him, he had a home. Two things Rey never had. To abandon that seemed unthinkable to her. Luke’s eyes seemed almost regretful as he regarded her, as if he was reading her thoughts. If she was being honest with herself, he probably was.

“Why would he go Dark? He had everything and he just threw it away,” she asked, staring into the fire.

Luke sighed.

“A Sith Lord named Snoke. He promised Ben power and identity, power that being a Jedi would not give him. He fell for it like his grandfather fell to the Emperor.”

Rey remembered her vision. Jedi being slaughtered by masked figures.

“He became a monster,” Rey whispered.

But, even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t entirely true. Kylo Ren— _Ben_ was not a monster, not entirely. He was misguided, misled and tricked. He decided this path but he could also change it. She felt his fear, that he was not enough like Darth Vader. If he was not entirely like Darth Vader yet, he could be turned back.

That realization was what she needed. She knew what she was going to do. She was not going to kill him. She was going to find a way to save him. She was going to drag him back to the Light.

The roar of the ocean and the crackling of the fire and the creatures of the forests filled the silence that grew between teacher and student.

“There is still Light in him, Master Luke. I know it,” Rey murmured.

There was. She felt it on Starkiller, felt it in his mind. He was not irredeemable. He was afraid and the fear was keep him there. Despite all of the horrific things he had done, he could be redeemed. Maybe.

Luke responded after a while, “I felt the same way about my father. In the end, there was still Light in Anakin Skywalker.”

Rey could feel his strength and could feed off of it. He was a good mentor, capable of giving guidance even when he pushed her to do menial and challenging tasks for her training over the several weeks she had been on Ahch-To. She needed him and the galaxy needed him. The galaxy could need Rey as well, maybe _Ben_ as well.

“Do you think I could do it? That I could save him?” she asked.

Luke poked the firewood with a stick, the fire beginning to die down.

“There is always hope, my student. There is always hope.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta da?  
> Look it doesn’t make sense for Rey to be all bodice-ripping ‘Oh Kylo Ren take me now’. If anything the roles are reversed. He is such a needy child who needs a hug or a punch in the face. (And I headcanon him a total bottom heheheeee -shot-).  
> Okay, so there will be a part 3 and that will wrap it up!  
> Thank you again for all of the good comments! Please keep them coming!  
> I also have a few things in the works that will be posted soon!  
> ~Tiara of Sapphires


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So…yeah…remember when I said this was going to be 3 chapters…about that…  
> But oh my God the feedback I have been getting for this. I am totally blown away. I appreciate it so much, you have no idea.  
> Enjoy!  
> Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars or any of its characters. This is just for my own amusement and not for profit.

He was in Starkiller base, on that narrow bridge. He knew this dream and knew it well. Han Solo was going to approach him. Han Solo was going to beg him, his son, to come home. And then Kylo was going to kill him.

The act was something he could not take back. No matter what he did moving forward, his father was dead by his hand. Neither the Dark nor the Light could change it.

So, he resigned himself to live through the memory again.

“Ben!” he heard his father’s voice call, practically bellowed. And he turned, letting the memory happen.

It was Rey. She was walking toward him, not his father, in her scavenger garb, like the day he first met her.

But she looked different, carried herself with an air that spoke of power and determination.

She was beautiful. Radiant. Like an angel.

She stopped in front of him. She smiled at him. The very idea of her smiling at him made his heart clench in his chest. She smiled at him like she was his friend, like she cared about him.

Kylo wished he was not dreaming. That the day the Starkiller and Han Solo died had never happened, instead only Rey came to him cloaked in Light.

She reached out a hand, mouthing something he could not understand. Kylo tried to move his arm, but his body was frozen. Her smile was starting to drop, urgency crossing her face. She needed him to take her hand but he could not, no matter how hard he tried.

The silence was violently shattered by the sound of a lightsaber being activated.

Kylo watched as Rey’s eyes widened, her body jerking forward with a cut-off croak, as a red blade sprouted from her chest. His mouth opened to scream, but no noise would come out.

“Why?” she rasped, tears forming at the edges of her eyes.

The red light disappeared from her body and she tipped over the edge of the bridge. He tried to catch her, but his body would not move. He was stuck, frozen, as she fell, into the dark.

All that was left in front of him was…himself. A masked Kylo Ren, still brandishing his lightsaber.

The light was gone, _her_ light was gone, only the blood-red light from the blade remained, reflecting off the shiny mask.

Kylo almost fell out of his bed, breath crushed in his lungs.

He was on the _Finalizer_. What happened in the dream was not real. He reached out to her through the Force, enough so he knew for certain that she was still alive and his dream was not a reality. He could not touch her, could not dare get anywhere near her.

He was poison. He was her destruction. His dream told him that. But he could not imagine an existence without her in it. He wanted her.

A mixture of emotions curled in his chest. Anger was amongst those and he clung onto that. It was better than guilt. It was better than sorrow. It was better than fear.

Anger would sustain him and it colored his vision.

He pulled on his clothes as if on autopilot and went to his training room.

He destroyed a dozen droids by the time he could see straight.

That girl was destroying him even when she was Force-knows how far away. She did not even need to prod at their mental link to get at him.

She was strength and, Force help him, he was drawn to it. He told himself it was just lust, his desire to make her his.

It was not concern. It was not care. Those were weak emotions and Kylo Ren was not weak.

He pushed the thoughts away as he cut down the thirteenth droid.

…

Kylo found it difficult to focus on what General Hux was droning on about. He was too busy thinking, thinking on the upstart scavenger-now-Jedi that took up far too much of his thoughts than he wanted to admit.

The First Order. The Knights of Ren. Snoke. All of these allegencies he needed to juggle and deal with. The near constant incompetence of the First Order grated on his nerves.

A warm, soft touch brushed against his mind, making him jump.

 _Rey_.

He allowed a smile to form underneath his mask. He felt her against his mind, as if she was tapping to get his attention. She wanted to talk to him.

“Are you even listening to me?” the red-head spat.

Kylo was going to punch a hole in Hux’s face one of these days. But, Snoke liked the slimy man, likening him to Grand Moff Tarkin of the old Empire. Hux definitely enjoyed the comparison while the Knight of Ren wanted to kill the man even more. Snoke liked him, so Kylo could do nothing but make his life as difficult as possible.

Kylo turned and walked away while Hux was mid-sentence, lips quirking up at the sound of the man sputtering behind him.

He had better things to do.

In the privacy of his quarters, he rested on his knees, to meditate and open his mind to her, to Rey.

He could see her in his mind’s eye. She was meditating in a position that mirrored his. Her eyes were open, looking directly at him.

Rey looked stronger, fuller. She was wearing different clothes, in a style that befit a Jedi. He would have been disgusted if he did not desire her.  

Rey was being careful, not giving away what planet she was on. The only hints he got were the stone ground she was sitting on and the cold wind that chilled her skin. That did not narrow things down at all. But, Kylo basked in the feeling of how _she_ sought _him_ out. She did not dismiss him as a monster that lingered in her mind, not entirely.

“ _Ben,_ ” she greeted.

The warmth that he felt in his chest was mercilessly snuffed out. He was immediately overcome with rage.

How dare she—how dare she…

“ _Don’t call me that!_ ” he screamed at her.

Before he could lash out at her, her image disappeared and her mental presence retreated. She faded away from him into a pinprick of light. Not gone, never gone, but diminished.

The rage disappeared as quickly as it came, replaced with regret. He felt the loss keenly.

He scrambled to reconnect with her. It was like grabbing at fog. He could see it, feel it, but could hold onto it.

She was gone, at least for now.

Kylo Ren was not good at playing nice. When he was Skywalker’s apprentice, the other padawans had avoided him like the plague. It made it all the more easy when he brought the Knights of Ren to destroy them.

He was good at pushing people away.

But if he was going to get in her good graces, maybe even get her to join him, he would need to play nice. Or she was going to slip away from him. Forever.

…

A day later, it was his turn to reach out for her. He felt so guilty that he snapped at her. He coaxed and prodded at her, trying to get her to open up. The Force that surrounded him was so cold without her bright presence.

If she was good at blocking him out the first time he tried to get the piece of Skywalker’s map from her mind, she was an expert now. She was not going to talk to him until she wanted to.

He just had to wait and seethe and hope.

Eventually the warmth returned, albeit slowly and cautiously.

“ _Are you going to yell at me? Or are you going to be civilized?_ ” Rey said as soon as they made a connection and her image formed.

Kylo cringed. Of course she was going to bring that up immediately. He wanted to say something snarky, push her away. But he did not want her to get farther from her than she already was.

“ _No,_ ” he said, projecting his regret to her. “ _I—apologize for my outburst_.”

He could feel her hesitance and confusion.

“ _Wait, you apologized?_ ” she said, sounding honestly surprised.

Did she think that little of him? Was he still that much of a monster in her eyes?

“ _I am capable of remorse, believe it or not_ ,” he muttered self-deprecatingly.

Rey crossed her arms, pride in her eyes, maybe a hint of smugness. Like he said something that she wanted him to say.

“ _Remorse doesn’t seem like a Sith-like feeling_.”

Oh. That was where the pride was coming from. Kylo stamped out the anger before it was obvious to her. He was not going to be tempted by the Light, but he got this close and was not going to let her get spooked.

Kylo crossed his arms, mirroring her. “ _There is a lot you do not know about the Sith, about the Force, Rey. Skywalker cannot teach you everything_.”

She rolled her eyes.

“ _You are trying to tempt me, Ben. It isn’t going to work_.”

His eye twitched in annoyance. “ _Stop calling me Ben._ ”

“ _Well, I don’t want to call you Kylo Ren. That name is not who you are._ ”

He could not help his lip from curling in a sneer.

“ _There is no one else but Kylo Ren._ ”

A foreign sadness punched him in stomach as he watched her eyes soften minutely with emotion. Then, determination replaced it.

“ _You are Ben in my mind. And since we are technically in my mind…_ ”

She was adamant about this, he could tell. He was Ben to her, no matter what he said or did. He might as well try to move a mountain. And if they were going to bicker over every time she used that name…

“ _Alright. Alright, fine. You can call me Ben_.”

Happiness, happiness from her, swept over him. And she smiled at him.

Oh.

Reality was so much better than a dream. No nightmare could snatch the moment from him. If they were together in person, he would have kissed her.

“ _Thank you, Ben_.”

No, thank you, Rey.

They spoke for a time, minutes, hours, days, he did not know. Kylo forgot that he was supposed to be tempting her to the Dark side.

Suddenly, she turned her head, like something distracted her. The connection wavered slightly.

“ _I have to go_ ,” she said, regret plain on her face.

Then, she got close, enough that their Force signatures mingled slightly, Light against Dark. To feel her that close almost stopped his heart because it felt so good.

“ _Goodbye, Ben_ ,” she whispered.

And then she faded back to a warm glow, leaving him alone, dazed.

The warmth was not the same, but he immersed himself in it for as long as he could before he came back to himself. When he did, he looked down to see the result of his excitement and reddened. By the Force, he was like a horny teenager.

His mind went to when he pleasured himself with the thought of her. In the moment, he wished she could feel what he was feeling.

Now, he felt like a lecher at the idea. And she would surely know what he was doing now since their connection was strengthening. Their relationship was likely to deteriorate if she knew that he was pleasuring himself when they were talking only moments earlier.

No, he was going to be better. Or he was going to learn to control what filtered through their mental link.

At this point, he just needed to be doused in cold water. A lot of cold water.

…

Snoke was angry and Kylo knew that before he saw the hologram image. He could feel that anger against his mind, a very familiar, near constant presence. It was a perversion next to the bright light that was Rey. He hid that idea as quickly as he could, hoping that Snoke did not notice it.

It was becoming a habit, talking with Rey through their connection. It was addicting, something that he craved.

Kylo knelt before his master.

“Your thoughts are not here, Kylo Ren,” Snoke said.

Kylo stiffened.

“My thoughts are with you, Supreme Leader.”

Snoke sneered at him.

“Do not try to flatter me.”

A cold hand seemed to grip the back of Kylo’s neck, leeching into his brain, picking at his thoughts. Kylo submitted himself, knowing that fighting back meant punishment.

“I see. You are thinking of the girl.”

Kylo spoke up, “I have been trying to tempt her to our cause.”

Rey…of course he wanted to know about Rey.

“Has she been tempted? You have been speaking with her for several weeks over your little link.”

Kylo was usually able to come to him with something of measure to report. Snoke wanted Rey, either on their side or dead, that much was clear. But she was not falling to the Dark like Kylo had hoped she would and he had no idea where she was. He was just falling deeper and deeper for her. That was all this was accomplishing.

Lying to the Sith Lord would get Kylo nowhere and he would see through the lie regardless.

Kylo bowed his head. “No. She resists the temptation. She will not listen. Skywalker must be training her in the Light.”

“Of course he is, you fool! Skywalker is training her to be a Jedi and would not let her fall to the Dark so easily like you!” Snoke growled.

Snoke thought him weak. Of course he did. Kylo straightened, frustration getting the better of him.

“I do not understand how she is so powerful,” he said, as a sudden thought crept over him. “Is she a descendant of Anakin Skywalker?”

The words burst from him unchecked. If they were related, then his attraction to her would be even more illicit than it already was. Kylo realized that was the wrong thing to say when Snoke’s eye twitched and his hand lifted.

The Force washed over him like sludge, oppressive and dark and suffocating. He gritted his teeth against the mental onslaught, knees turning to jelly, buckling to the ground.

Snoke sneered down at him. “The Force runs strong in the girl’s blood. But she is no Skywalker.”

After a moment, Kylo expected pain to stop. Whenever Snoke became angry, the mental punishment would carry on for a half a minute at most. But he was not letting up. If anything, it was intensifying.

Snoke leaned forward in his chair. “Can she feel you? You are connected with her through the Force, are you not?”

Kylo did not respond, could not respond. He was trying to keep from screaming in pain.

“Answer me!” Snoke shouted, the pain reaching fever-pitch.

Distantly, a whisper of a whisper, he could hear a gasp and could feel an answering ripple of pain.

“Yes, Master. I am connected with her,” Kylo forced the words through his lips.

He watched through watery eyes as a cold smile crossed over Snoke’s face.

“Good,” the Sith Lord said, “I cannot reach the girl myself. So, she will feel my wrath, the wrath of the Sith, through you.”

And Kylo Ren’s world dissolved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh oh. That’s not good.  
> Thank you for reading! Please drop a nice comment if you have the inclination. They are really appreciated!  
> The next chapter may (keyword: may) take a while to show up with the holidays. In the meantime, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all who read this!  
> ~Tiara of Sapphires


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who doesn’t enjoy cliffhangers? Heh…  
> Thank you so much to all who comment and support this story! I am so grateful, you have no idea. Sorry I haven't been punctual about responding to comments. I will get to that, I promise!  
> Enjoy!  
> Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars or any of its characters. This is just for my own amusement and not for profit.

Rey was burning.

Her mind was burning. She could not breathe. The Force seemed closed in on her like a dark and oppressive wave, smothering her. She tried to fight it off, running through every possible technique Luke had taught her.

Letting her emotions flow through her, not letting them control her.

It was not working. Nothing was working. This darkness was coming from within, tearing into her.

She knew the source. She knew, she knew, she knew.

She had decided that her connection through the Force with Ben was going to be her weapon and method of turning him back to the Light, with Luke’s tentative blessing. Their connection strengthened over time, almost a direct link between their two minds.

That particular day, as she meditated, his presence had seemed louder, louder than the cool buzz in her periphery that she became used to. Not malicious, but full of something that she remembered feeling in him when she entered his mind months earlier: fear, laced with something darker. And it grew until it was a painful buzzing, a worrying sensation.

She was naïve and foolish to believe that he could be trusted.

Curiosity and concern got the best of her, hoping to find out the cause of his apparent distress, and she prodded at the connection.

Luke had told her what it was like to be hit with Force lightning. About how it felt like the Dark was shredding him from the inside out, destroying his very essence. Rey imagined that what she was feeling was similar. But she did not have a repentant father to save her.

Fear and pain that was not her own instantly ricocheted and burned through her body, as real as if was her own. And she could not close the link no matter how hard she tried. The floodgates were opened.

“Master Luke! Master Luke!” she screamed after managing to open her mouth from its painful rictus.

Her body tipped forward from its meditative position, curling into itself, shaking and sweating.

“ _Ben! Ben! What are you doing? Stop!_ ” she cried out in the direction of the link.

He did not respond, did not give her any indication that he cared, that he gave a damn about her. He left her writhing, suffering, not letting up on the outpouring of pain flowing through their Force connection.

“ _Please! Ben! Stop!_ ”

Rey thought they were in a good place. They had good conversations, daily conversations sometimes spending time just being and sharing in their connection. They were cultivating a relationship.

The first time they connected had been a disaster. Calling him Ben only served to enrage him but she knew that the only way she could drag him from the Dark was pry him off the influence the Knights of Ren and the Sith had over him. The name Kylo Ren was part of the Dark that kept him enslaved.

Rey thought she had blown it, failed in her mission before it could even get started. She had been so thankful that he sought her out. And he allowed her to call him Ben. It was clear that he wanted them to keep communication, no matter the cost to him. And he apologized to her for yelling at her.

The dislike and mistrust she inherently had for him had slowly softened. She was still wary, never revealing where she was with Master Luke. She would be lying if she said that she did not harbor any ill feelings against him, for the atrocities he committed and allowed the happen.

But she thought her idea to coax him into the Light was working. Sometimes it felt like the cold darkness that was his Force signature was becoming lighter and warmer.

It was all for nothing. All of the hope, the naïve, girlish hope she allowed herself to hold in her heart was for nothing. The affection for him that she allowed him to see was for nothing. That much was clear. He betrayed her. He was going to torture her, destroy her.

“ _You kriffing bastard, I thought we were friends!_ ”

That feeling of utter betrayal laced the pain, sharpening, amplifying it.

She wanted to beg for the pain to stop. She wanted to scream into their connection that she would do _anything_ for the pain to stop. And she knew that he would tell her that if she joined, the pain would stop. Such was the way of the Sith: finding weakness and exploiting it.

On the edge of her consciousness, she could sense Luke sprinting towards her, the beacon of Light painful against the darkness suffocating her.

Luke was there, kneeling beside her. He rolled her on her back, shouting her name. Panic came off of him in waves, but the closeness of his presence was like an anchor, pinning her to the present.

 “Focus on me,” he yelled, loud enough that even through the ringing in her ears she could hear him.

She tried, but the image kept on flickering to something else.

_A wrinkled, pale face, not human, something old and sinister._

Rey strained, sweat beading on her skin, trying to focus on the Jedi before her, trying to push out and shield herself from the onslaught of Darkness that sought to shred her mind from the inside out.

She would not give in, even though the pain threatened to either make her heart stop or explode. The temptation would stay at bay. It had to.

Distantly, Luke was swearing colorfully and creatively in Huttese as he carried her through the woods to their little hut. Rey would have teased him about his language if she did not feel like madness was a hairsbreadth away.

She was not sure how long this mental attack went on. Minutes. Hours. Days. Endless time spent trying to be a rock anchored in the ocean and allowing the pain the wash over her.

But suddenly, the pain began to ebb away, leaving a raw void in her body. Rey grit her teeth as she pushed back against the pain, filling the empty space with herself, building a wall around her mind only few could pass through.

More time passed, immeasurable.

Night had fallen when she felt sane and safe enough to open her eyes. Her head throbbed and her entire body felt like she was trampled by a herd of banthas.

Luke pressed his hand, his real hand, on top of her head, making a slight rubbing motion.

The touch was comforting, affectionate and her face twisted as she began to cry. Huge wracking sobs shook her small frame.

Tears were the worst kind of sin on Jakku, where every drop of water was to be conserved. To waste it on something as weak as _crying_ could merit a beating if caught.

Years and years of grievances and suffering bubbled up and spilled over compounded with the extreme mental strain. Death and abandonment and betrayal. It was inevitable. But it did not make it any less painful. So she cried. She cried until she did not have any tears left and she was left feeling thoroughly exhausted.

Luke sat in a meditative position by her cot.

“Sleep, Rey. I will watch over you.”

Rey highly doubted that she would be able to sleep in the next _month_ , much less that moment, but she closed her eyes at his request.

Sleep took her swiftly.

…

Rey expected to see a vision of Ben. He came to her dreams sometimes, not having to do with their Force connection. Sometimes they were good dreams. Sometimes they were bad dreams. Sometimes they were dreams that left her hot and wet when she awoke from them.

She expected the nightmare of a lifetime.

But she found herself in a large, hollow cave. There was a blue, transparent figure before her. He had a trimmed beard and Jedi robes and a kindly expression, looking so familiar to Rey. But she did not know who he was.

He stared at her with a small, sad smile.

“Who are you?” she asked. Her voice sounded like when she was a child, small and sad, the same age she was abandoned on Jakku.

“Who are you?” he returned, calm and serene.

She knew that voice. When she touched Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber on Takodana, she heard that voice in the ensuing visions. She knew who he was, but she did not know who he was.

It was frustrating, maddening.

“Who are you?” she shouted, sounding more like her present self.

He smiled enigmatically and said nothing.

…

Her eyes fluttered open.

Luke was moving around in the hut, but each step sounded like a thermal detonator going off.

The room was too bright, fire radiating off of the Jedi Master.

A man was sitting on her bed, near her feet. He was hunched over, elbows on his knees, gloved hands covering his face. His body was shaking, as if he was crying.

She knew who he was, but thoughts passed through her hands like morning mist.

And darkness overtook her.

…

The ghost was there again, stroking his beard and staring at her with a thoughtful expression.

Sadness and exhaustion reared their ugly heads and Rey wanted to scream at him. She wanted him to say something, anything that was not a simple parroting of what she said.

“Who are you?” she asked. Her voice sounded uncomfortably loud and echoic.

She just wanted to know who he was. She wanted to know why he would come to her now of all times.

Rey blinked and the Force ghost was less than a foot away from her. His hands moved, resting on her shoulders. The touch was warm and cold, tangible and intangible, familiar and impersonal.

“My dear child.”

The mixture of emotions on his face almost had her doubling over. So much sorrow and love.

“Take care, Rey. Take care.”

…

Rey felt gutted when she awoke, the words of the ghost-spirit-man echoing in her mind.

_Take care. My dear child. Take care._

She was not sure if it was a warning.

She was on her cot, tucked snuggly with blankets. Even Luke’s cloak joined the pile, the sight sending a pang of something akin to love radiating from her breastbone.

There was a wet rag on her forehead and rations and water at her bedside.

She could hear Luke outside, tending to the fire.

Every curse word she knew fluttering through her head as she sat up. Her head felt like it was full of sand, formless.

She half-expected Kylo Ren to break her mind in her sleep, when she was most vulnerable. Maybe he did not want to. Maybe he did not have the courage to do it. Maybe he was the twisted piece of bantha fodder that everyone in the Resistance says that he was and wanted her to live with the aftermath of what he did.

A fresh wave of betrayal crushed her chest, closing her throat.

Forcibly pushing those emotions away, she turned to the rations and water Luke left for her. She got halfway through the food and almost all of the water before her mind caught up with her stomach and told her to slow down.

She started when Luke entered the hut, his eyes immediately going to her. He looked haggard, more than usual.

“How long was I asleep?” she asked, avoiding the question she wanted to ask.

“Three days.”

There was a heavy pause, words lying heavy and unsaid on her tongue.

She forced the words out. “How long did…did the torture last?”

Luke paused, not really able to look her in the eye. “Six hours.”

Rey lay back on her cot with a small _oh_ and covered her eyes with an arm, forcing herself to take slow, even breaths.

She was not going to cry, she was not going to cry, she was not going to cry.

Six hours in excruciating pain. Three days asleep.

Talk about something else. Anything else.

“There was a man in my dreams. A Force ghost,” she choked out, moving her arm to look at Luke.

The Jedi looked startled by that.

“He had a beard and he had a kind expression. Who is he?” Rey continued.

She could not give a detailed description, but apparently it was enough as she watched as several emotions flickered across Luke’s face: sorrow, nostalgia, regret, acceptance. She expected him to wave off her concern, promising to speak on it another day.

“The person you saw was Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

Rey opened her mouth and shut it.

Oh.

“Why? Why would he come to me?” she asked, confusion plain on her features.

She knew it often took conscious effort on the part of the living to contact a Force ghost. But Master Kenobi came to her without her bidding, as if by his own free will. She had no connection to Obi-Wan Kenobi. If he would come to anyone, it would be the Luke, someone he knew while he was alive.

Luke sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his metal hand.

“You have been weakened from your ordeal. When you have regained your strength…I will tell you everything.”

…

It had been a few hours after Luke left the hut to go do…whatever it was he did when Rey was not around.

She stared at the ceiling, not sure who should have been occupying her thoughts: Obi-Wan Kenobi or Ben.

Ben was winning, the quiet of her mind and the lack of his familiar presence were painfully obvious.

Despite the smarter voices in her head that told her that it was a horrible, terrible, really bad idea, she went inward, searching for the connection she had with Ben. A part of her hoped that it was gone, but part of her hoped it wasn’t. It took some effort, combing through the writhing column of Light that was her Force signature.

It was barely there, a whisper of the strength it used to have. Relief and disgust warred within her. He was with her still. Kylo Ren. Ben Solo. She was not sure at that point if Ben Solo was even still alive inside the Knight of Ren or if, by torturing her, this was his way of killing the Light inside himself for good.

Regardless, she did not dare touch it or get anywhere near their link. She shuffled it back to the far, far corner of her consciousness, burying it under the Light that sustained itself during the onslaught of Dark.

Rey learned her lesson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> …whoops.  
> But hey, the course of true love never ran smoothly. Somebody important said that, right?  
> Please drop a review if you have time! They are the best kind of motivation :)  
> ~Tiara of Sapphires


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Okay I might have done a dumb so I am reposting this chapter after making some additions. This is what happens when you don’t proofread, kids. Chapter 6 should be up soon). Sorry to morri, Meagan M (Juulna), and Elliesmeow but your comments got deleted for this chapter when I reposted it (which is super dumb imo). I took screenshots so I can still cherish them :)  
> Thank you to all who have supported this story so far! You all are amazing!  
> Time for the fallout of Snoke’s mega-douchebaggery.  
> Enjoy!  
> Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars or any of its characters. This is just for my own amusement and not for profit.

Force help the Knights of Ren who crossed Kylo on the training grounds.

The inexperienced Knights gave him wide berth, unwilling to challenge him. Even the experienced ones were wary of him. He radiated anger and a thirst for blood. And everyone knew that Kylo Ren was a ruthless fighter, even when he was in a good mood.

But his helmet hid a pale, gaunt face and eyes sunk-in from lack of sleep. He wanted to break something. He wanted to destroy something beautiful. But there was no beauty on the backwater planet the Knights of Ren chose for their base, all broken stone and freezing air.

Brandishing his lightsaber, Kylo stepped into a sparring circle.

For several moments, no one approached. Kylo paced, waiting for someone to have the courage or stupidity to face him.

Finally, someone did.

Donning full armor and glaring at Kylo with beady eyes, an Ithorian Knight of Ren stepped into the ring and stood across from him. He was carrying a double-headed axe, the metal vibrating with energy. Kylo vaguely remembered his name: Erd Ren and he knew that this Ithorian was with him when the Knights razed Skywalker’s temple.

Another Knight stepped forward to the edge of the circle, claiming the spot as referee.

“To first blood?” she called out.

Erd made a series of grunts at the woman.

She turned to Kylo and translated, “To incapacitation. Is that acceptable?”

The human Knight nodded and his lightsaber blazed to life with a crackle.

Kylo’s body moved automatically, parrying the Ithorian’s lunge and dancing around the edge of the circle.

It was muscle-memory, sparring with his fellow Knights.

His mind drifted.

…

When Kylo had awoken in his quarters on the _Finalizer_ , he felt tired and worn and not entirely sure how he was there. A few seconds passed and the memories began to trickle back.

Snoke. The hours of torture, like his mind and his entire being held over a blazing inferno. Rey.

Oh, no. Rey.

Kylo swung his legs over the side of his bed, pressing one hand against his face. His nails dug into where Rey had struck him with his grandfather’s lightsaber. The dull ache bloomed into something sharper. Whether the self-flagellation was to further immerse himself in the Dark or to punish himself for his utter failure was not something he wanted to look into.

His other hand dug pressed into his side, the pain beginning to clear his mind and made something apparent: he could not feel Rey. The near-constant warmth that radiated from their connection was gone, leaving him cold.

Terror rippled through him.

She wasn’t…she couldn’t be…

Did she die when he was unconscious? Did Snoke go too far and snuff out the fledgling Jedi?

His knees hit the ground on reflex. He used the Force to drive away the pain of a pounding headache. And he meditated, rifling through his mind to find something, anything that indicated Rey’s survival of the attack.

He lost almost all hope before he found it.

Their connection was a particle of a particle, so small that it was barely there. But it was there and he praised every god he could think of for it.

She was alive. Rey was alive.

The joy was short-lived as self-loathing unlike anything he had ever felt before turned his stomach to ice. She was in pain. The subtle vibrating of the bond told him that much. And it was because of him. While it was Snoke who actually attacked her, he was responsible. It was Kylo who caused the Force-bond to be forged in the first place. He let himself be so weak as to let her in and let that bond strengthen until it was almost a direct linkage of their minds.

Days passed and Kylo was beginning to lose his mind. Nothing had changed. Their link stayed pathetically dim and inactive. Food and sleep were inconsequential as he kept his meditative vigil, pouring over the tiny speck like it was the most valuable thing in the entire galaxy.

Was she going to wake up?

That was the question that haunted Kylo’s every moment.

Hux had pounded his fist against the door to his quarters, yelling about some meeting or another. Kylo could not care less about Hux or the First Order or anyone outside the scavenger-Jedi at that point. Hux was inconsequential. The red-head could whine to Snoke all he wanted.

Snoke.

Resentment for Snoke curled in his chest as he meditated on the remnants of their Force connection. It had been a beautiful thing, Rey and her beautiful light easily compensating for the darkness and ugliness that Kylo brought.

They did not get any pertinent information about where she was or where Skywalker was or anything of the sort during the mental attack. It was just to cause her pain.

He snuffed out that feeling of absolute rage before he did something that would probably get him killed. If the Supreme Leader caught wind of a change in allegiance, Kylo’s life was forfeit and, by extension, Rey’s as well.

Kylo was almost startled out of meditation when the connection flared.

It glowed and burned like smallest ember, fragile.

The weak warmth seemed to fill him and Kylo allowed himself to smile.

…

After spending an hour in his refresher, Kylo forced himself to leave his quarters after little activity on Rey’s part. She was healing and another mental intrusion could prove catastrophic.

Kylo also knew that Hux was probably going to break down his door if he did not show his face and indicate that he was, indeed, still alive and on the side of the First Order.

Cowardice kept him from contacting her immediately. What could he possibly say to make her forgive him? And when he tried to contact her, Rey’s mental shields would not allow him anywhere near her mind.

Despite the Dark that told him to rip and tear and take what he wanted, Kylo stayed his hand. He could beat his fists against the wall of her mind until his knuckles split and bled. He could scream himself hoarse for her to listen to him. It would have been in vain.

If he tried to contact her without her consent, he would risk severing the bond completely. While Rey was awake, contact was virtually impossible. Even if she was asleep, he would probably have a difficult time.

In another life, Luke Skywalker would have told him to be patient.

It took several days and a lot of anxious waiting before he felt her mental shields relax slightly, the connection brightening at the same time.

Tentatively, Kylo reached for it, the intertwining of their Force signatures reflexively letting him in.

The metal walls, recycled air, and harsh lights of the _Finalizer_ disappeared, turning into sand and wind and stars. Kylo blinked as the scene solidified.

Kylo knew this place. It was Jakku and the toppled AT-AT that Rey had called home for over a decade. He had seen bits and pieces of those memories when he first entered her mind that fateful day. Rey even allowed him to see more clearly when they spoke over their connection.

Rey was sitting where she would eat her meals after a day of scavenging, the metal remnant of the Empire curled around her. She was in her scavenger garb, but she had a Jedi cloak around her shoulders, hood covering her hair. Her eyes were ringed with dark shadows, skin dirty.

She was so beautiful, staring up at the stars. Kylo could look at her forever and not get tired of the sight.

Then she moved her head, staring directly at him, and Kylo’s heart skipped a beat. Her face twisted in confusion, as if she was debating if he was a figment of her imagination or if he was actually in her dream.

Pain, sorrow, grief, betrayal. All of those horrible emotions flickered across her face and trembled through the Force so he could feel it as keenly as she did. He wanted to cry. He wanted to scream. He wanted to kneel before her, wrap his arms around her legs and beg for her forgiveness. If he had to spend a thousand lifetimes making it up to her, he would.

He watched as her face turned stony.

“ _Get out of my head, Kylo Ren_ ,” Rey said, voice flat and defeated.

Rey turned back towards the stars, dismissing him.

They were both shaking, for different reasons.

Rey called him Kylo Ren, not Ben. She might as well have stabbed him in the stomach. It probably would have hurt less.

He could feel a flicker of fear in her, despite her cold attitude. Months prior, he would have felt smug about it, a little desert rat being scared of him. They were right back where they started, a Knight of Ren and a scavenger girl at opposite ends of the war, of the galaxy, of the Force itself.

Kylo stepped forward, keeping his posture as open and nonthreatening as possible.

“ _Rey, I did not mean—_.”

He was out of her head so quickly he had whiplash. The contents of his quarters flew around the room in a series of crashes, the lights flickering over his head.

He was back on the _Finalizer_ , kneeling in front of the melted helmet of his grandfather. Rey and that peaceful scene were gone.

Rage and sorrow and guilt mixed in a volatile, swirling mess in his chest.

She would not let him explain. She did not understand that he did not want to hurt her. It was Snoke’s idea, not his.

…

A pained shriek and the sounds of jeering ripped him from his memories, sending him back to the training ground.

Kylo’s breathing was too loud for his ears, almost inhuman through the voice-modulator.

He was covered in _someone’s_ blood, his opponent was barely breathing on the ground, and there was a sharp pain across Kylo’s chest. The axe was broken on the ground, but a bloodstained vibroblade told Kylo where the blood and the pain came from.

The referee, who was really just a formality at this point, looked nervous when she declared the match over and Kylo the winner.

An artificial smugness straightened Kylo’s back, putting on a show for the other Knights who gathered to see the two face off. The rage of memory that energized his movements had drained from him, leaving him feel strangely hollow.

The humming of his lightsaber ceased with a twitch of his hand and he strode to his temporary quarters.

Kylo was given a large room in the headquarters. He did not want it, since most of his energy was diverted to First Order business. It had the necessities, slick and shiny, and a holoprojector in the center if someone needed to contact him.

It had been two days since the last time Kylo spoke with Rey. After that, their link remained closed off. Hux demanded that he be sent back to the Knights of Ren and cool off so he did not further destroy the _Finalizer_ in his anger.

After retrieving the med-kit, Kylo stripped off most of his clothes, leaving him in pants and boots.

The bacta stung over his wound and Kylo hissed at the feeling.

_Sloppy. Weak._

The voice that sounded like his own and sounded like Snoke and sounded like some rasping serpent of a man jeered at him as he tended to his wounds.

Erd put up a fight. The slash across his chest was probably going to scar and the bruises scattered across the whole of his body would take some time to heal. But the other Knight was in worse shape. Maybe he lived, maybe he died. Kylo did not care.

 The holoprojector started to glow, pulling him from his thoughts. Wincing, he pulled on a shirt and with a wave of the Force, an image appeared on the screen.

“How is your ship, General Hux?” Kylo sneered at the figure.

“Very funny, Ren. I am afraid I will have to cut your little vacation short. You will find and capture the scavenger Jedi. That is your only mission.”

Kylo stood, glowering at Hux, hands balling into fists.

“Whose order is this, General Hux? Yours? Or are you just being more of a pain in the ass than usual?”

It was Hux’s turn to sneer, something like smug victory twisting his features.

“It is Supreme Leader Snoke’s order. You have been too soft on the girl and he is growing impatient. For your sake, I suggest you actually do this right this time.”

The image cut off in a stream of smoke and spark as red light connected with metal.

Anger and something akin to panic sent his muscles shaking.

Find Rey. Capture Rey. The willingness to obey his Master’s word that had been so strong when Kylo first turned to the Dark side had waned to almost nothing.

He could hardly bear when Snoke tortured the two of them through their Force-bond. How could he possibly hurt her now, since she would fight him tooth-and-nail when he would eventually find her.

_How soft you have become. That little waif has turned you into this._

He hated her. He hated her for making him feel so weak. The Dark side was supposed to make him strong. He also hated the shadows that crept in his mind and taunted him.

Kylo Ren was not weak.

_But you love her, don’t you._

He did not dare answer that question.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp. (Hopefully you all enjoyed the little additions I made. I felt so dumb that I did not include them in the first place)  
> So, my dear readers, classes started for me today (Monday) and so updates will come slower as I get used to my new schedule. Please, if it is taking me too long to update, drop a review and yell at me to get off my butt and write. The more reviews, the more motivation ;)  
> ~Tiara of Sapphires  
> PS, what is your favorite piece of music from the Star Wars movies? If you leave a comment, add the name of the piece and which movie it came from so I can use it for writing inspiration and motivation :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY MY DEAR READERS, COLLEGE SUCKS AND I HATE IT.  
> But, hey, super long chapter today!  
> Anywho, thank you so much to all who have supported this so far! All of your lovely feedback really makes this worthwhile!  
> I made a few edits in the first 3 chapters because I felt like it. Hopefully it fleshes things out a little.  
> Enjoy!  
> Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars or any of its characters. This is just for my own (twisted) amusement and not for profit.

_There is emotion, find peace. There is passion, find serenity._

Rey’s lips mouthed those words over and over like a mantra, as if to will peace and serenity into her being.

If Kylo Ren had been trying to kill her or convert her through pain, he failed. She was strong, stronger than the Dark Side’s influence, stronger than Kylo Ren.

Rey was Light. The Dark could do what it liked. It had no power over her. She would not bend. She would not turn. She would not fall.

She figured that if she reminded herself of that enough times, it would become the truth.

But of course the one time she tried to sleep and let her guard down since the attack, Kylo Ren was there. She was foolish for thinking that he would not try to enter her mind again after the initial attack.

She had hoped that he was just a figment of her imagination, but the foreign familiarity of his presence, the emotions that were not hers, told her otherwise. He had found a way back into her head to disturb her relatively peaceful dream.

He looked terrible, face pale and hollow. The scar across his face, which used to be silvery and almost dignifying, looked harsh and red.

His dark eyes drank her in like he was a dying man and she was the first sign of water he had seen in days. If that had happened a week earlier, she would have been flattered, maybe even enamored.

But everything had changed. She knew that. And he knew that. And he looked so sad and pathetic that when she saw him her first impulses were either to comfort him or scream at him.

_“Get out of my head, Kylo Ren.”_

Rey dismissed him, wrapping herself in a cold aloofness that she did not truly feel, forcing his created name from her lips even though it tasted like poison.

_Find peace, find serenity._

“ _Rey, I did not mean—._ ”

Hearing that, the thinly veiled desperation and hunger that radiated off of him and tinted his words, almost made her façade crack.

What could he possibly have _meant_ to happen? He did not mean to hurt her? He did not mean to torture her for hours and hours? The act was very intentional. He could not have just stumbled into her mind and pour pain into her.

_Find peace, find serenity._

She pushed him out of her mind before either of them could do anything more and she lurched back into consciousness. Before her mind caught up with her body, she was bundling up and sprinting into the woods to find her meditative spot.

She could feel it again as she recalled what had happened. The fear and anger and suffocating grief creeping like sludge from the recesses of her mind trying to overcome her.

Rey had meditated for two days without stopping after throwing Kylo Ren out of her mind, teetering on a razor-sharp edge of either forcing herself back into his mind to tear him a new one or doing everything within her power to sever their link completely.

Both options were easy and she knew that they were rooted in anger, something that Luke greatly discouraged. Feel anger, acknowledge anger, and get over anger. Never act out in anger.

Entering his mind by force would only make her like _him_. And despite the logic behind destroying their link, some secret, unbearably naïve part of her just did not _want_ to. Maybe she still clung onto a nonexistent glimmer of hope that Ben Solo was somewhere, alive, in the Knight of Ren.

So she was just going to recover and gain strength, in the likely even that she was wrong.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, the air smelling like wet dirt and leaves. Cold wind made the trees shake and sway. Heavy grey clouds closed over the sky and fat raindrops fell to the ground.

Rey supposed that most people would get up and find shelter. But she was not like most people. Instead, she tilted her face upwards and let the water drip onto her face.

Ahch-To was not just peaceful. It _was_ peace. It was silence. It was reflection. The Force seemed to emanate from every particle of the place and she let it cover her like a blanket.

Luke was meditating on the other side of the island and Rey could feel his presence in the Force like he was sitting right next to her. He had hardly left her side after the attack, guiding her through mental exercises to strengthen and protect her mind.

He promised he would tell her about Obi-Wan Kenobi and why he appeared to her when he returned. That had been three days ago.

Obi-Wan did not return to Rey, despite her efforts to summon his Force-ghost. Luke had told her that Force-ghosts had sentience and could come and go whenever they wanted.

Apparently, Obi-Wan did not want to show himself to her and that irked her. He knew her. Or at least had some sort of a connection with her. It went beyond the fact that she was a budding Jedi.

_These are your first steps. My dear child. Take care._

She imagined those words coming from a father, more than a wise man’s warning. But she knew little about fathers. When she tried to remember the faces of her parents, it was always murky pictures, formless and fleeting.

Exhaling through her nose, she let the sounds of the rain and thunder fade into nothing as she delved into her mind, willing the Force to guide her.

Luke had told her to focus on her meditation, regaining balance with the Force. It was the only thing she was really allowed to do, restricted from sparring and anything that required real mental exertion.

Impatience got the best of her. She wanted to know. She wanted to know everything.

She could see the memory, bright and fuzzy. But she could also see another memory, something darker, clinging onto it, as if they were linked.

_She was back on Starkiller, strapped to that interrogation chair, a scared boy playing a scary man trying to pick the map out of her mind._

_He found a memory, but not the one he was looking for. It was a memory Rey did not know that she had. Or maybe she did know, but her consciousness would not acknowledge it. He did not delve into it, only prodding at it, to get a rise out of her._

_“I see it. I see the island.”_

Rey pushed that memory away. She thought enough over her time on Starkiller and now was not the time to think on Kylo Ren.

She could not ruminate on this new memory of the island when it was initially dug up from the recesses of her mind, too busy trying to force the man out of her head. And she almost had forgotten that she remembered it in the first place during the whirlwind that was the fallout of Starkiller and Jedi training.

It was an old memory, faded and blurred around the edges. Mostly images and feelings, a child’s memory.

Rey reached for it and she was catapulted years into the past.

_It was a strange place, in a good way. Home was always so loud and this place was quiet: green land surrounded by sparkling blue water._

_Rey ran towards the water’s edge, kicking her foot to send glittering droplets into the air._

_She had never seen anything like it before. So much water and life. It was so much better than the city._

_She walked along the water’s edge until something bright in the water caught the sunlight. Rey blinked at the light that flashed in her eyes. A stone, perfectly round and striped with shades of grey, sat at the bottom. And Rey wanted it._

_It looked too deep for her to wade into and she did not know how to swim. But the rock glinted in the light, so tempting._

_A small hand reached out._

_“I want that rock, I want that rock, I want that rock,” she muttered to herself._

_It shifted in the lake bed, silt making a small brown cloud in the water. Slowly, it rose from the ground and broke through the surface of the lake._

_Rey grinned and turned to her parents who approached behind her._

_Her father, with a thinly trimmed beard, light brown hair, and kind blue eyes. Her mother, with long dark brown hair, long limbs, and dark brown eyes_

_“Look!” Rey shouted, “I moved—”_

_She caught the expressions on their faces before they covered them up with smiles._

_Mama and Papa looked sad when they thought she was not looking. She could feel it if she tried hard enough._

_The rock fell back into the water with a_ ker-plunk _._

_The memory shifted, later that day._

_“Rey’ika,” Papa whispered, rousing her from sleep._

_It was dark and Papa was so sad and his hands were trembling and his voice sounded thick. It brought tears to her eyes._

_Papa should not be sad._

_“Papa?” Rey said, rubbing her eyes with her fists, half in sleepiness, half to stop the tears from spilling over._

_“Rey’ika, get dressed.”_

_Rey dressed herself with shaking hands, too afraid to ask why she was getting into day clothes in the middle of the night._

_Something was wrong. She could feel it._

_Papa took her by the hand and led her outside to where the ship that brought them to this planet sat. Next to it a ship Rey had never seen before idled, the engines roaring faintly._

_Mama walked towards the two of them, sniffing softly. When she reached them, the two adults knelt before Rey, Mama taking one of her hands. Papa took the other._

_“Your Mama and Papa love you very much, Rey,” Mama whispered, pressing a kiss to her forehead. Her eyes were shimmering with tears._

_“Where are we going?” she asked, confusion plain on her face._

_“We will always be with you, but you have to go with this man,” Papa said, glancing behind them._

_Rey looked at the hooded figure standing at the ramp of the strange spacecraft. Struck with fear, Rey lunged forward, wrapping skinny arms around her parents. They embraced her back, squeezing her until it almost hurt._

_“I want to stay with you. I don’t want to go,” she whimpered._

_“Rey, you have to.”_

_Rey shook her head. “Why? Why do I need to go?”_

_She did not understand. She was afraid and sad and her parents were afraid and sad and that just made her even more afraid and sad. She wanted to go back home to the city. Nothing bad ever happened. She wished she never went to this island._

_Papa stroked her cheeks with large weathered hands. “We will see each other again, I promise. Now, go.”_

_They pried her off and Rey started to cry._

_“Please, Rey,” Mama said, voice small and broken._

_She could footsteps, almost covered up by the rumble of the ship’s engine. Rey looked up to see the hooded man right in front of her, standing between her parents. She looked to see his face underneath the hood._

_It was Luke Skywalker, face young and tired._

_He reached out towards her and the world went blurry._

_She was on Jakku, outside Niima Outpost, watching the ship leave._

_“Come back!” she screamed, Plutt’s disgusting hand keeping her from running._

_They were leaving her. Her family. Where are they going? What did her family look like? Why are they leaving her?_

_“They are going to come back,” a small voice in her head whispered._

“Be careful, Rey. What you see and what is the truth are not necessarily the same.”

Rey started out of her meditation with a choked cry. Her eyes, blurred with tears and rainwater, scanned the clearing and found the bluish figure standing to her right.

“Obi-Wan?” she rasped.

She recognized him, even though the last time she saw him she was in a pain-induced delirium. Bearded, kind, vaguely stern and infinitely wise.

The Force-ghost moved closer, mirroring her meditative pose across from her.

“Hello, Rey.”

Rey opened and shut her mouth several times, not sure what to say. But one word came to mind.

“Why?” Rey croaked.

The older man watched her as her eyes darted around the clearing, frantic and near-hysterical.

“Master Luke…he took me from my family!” she cried out, “He left me on Jakku, alone! Why? Why would he do that to me?”

Rey wrapped her arms around her body, squeezing her eyes closed, chest shaking with barely repressed sobs.

“Why? I was alone for so many years…” she whispered.

She flinched as something landed on her cheeks, keenly familiar. Rey opened her eyes to see that Obi-Wan had leaned forward and pressed his hands to her cheeks. It was an intangible sensation, like she was getting pressed by the Force.

It reminded her so much of her father doing that to her in her memories that she almost burst into tears again.

 “Rey, Luke did that to protect you. This happened shortly after the new Jedi Temple had been destroyed. Knights of Ren knew that your parents had a Force-sensitive child and would have killed you. Luke contacted your parents and they agreed to have you hidden.”

As soon as the sorrow and rage came to Rey, it left, leaving her feel rather ashamed of her reaction.

“They did it to protect me,” she repeated, looking away at the ground.

“Luke was going to salvage what was left of the future of the Jedi if it killed him, Rey. What he did was not right, not entirely. But you would have been executed or made a tool to the First Order if he did nothing.”

Rey rubbed her arms, realizing how cold she was.

“I could not have been that strong as a child that I would have been a threat,” she muttered.

Rey watched as his mouth turned up in a smile, something like mischief flickering in his eyes.

“The Force is strong in our family,” Obi-Wan said.

He stood smoothly as Rey scrambled to her feet.

“Wait—what do you mean by _our_ family?” she sputtered.

Obi-Wan only smiled enigmatically. “Luke is returning to camp. Speak to him.”

She blinked and he was gone, but his presence lingered, like a comforting hand pressed to her shoulder.

Heart pounding, she made her way back to camp.

…

Luke’s back was to her when she entered the hut, but he knew that she was there.

“You have questions, Padawan,” he said, resigned, sitting on his cot.

Rey’s lower lip trembled, emotion from her memories welling up again.

“I remember. The last day I saw my parents. You were there. You took me to Jakku.”

Luke nodded, not saying anything, not defending himself.

“Obi-Wan came to me. He told me why.”

Luke nodded again.

“You were their only child and they loved you very much. They would have done anything to keep you safe.”

Rey closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. She knew that. She felt their love in that one remaining memory she had of them.

“What are their names?” she whispered.

Luke hesitated for a beat and answered, “Your father’s name was Voric and your mother’s name was Aysaa.”

Hearing the words out loud almost made her double over, tears springing anew in her eyes.

“Voric and Aysaa,” she repeated, testing the names on her tongue.

She knew her parents’ names. She knew what they looked like. She knew that they loved her. The void in her mind where her parents were supposed to be was slowly being filled.

“When Knights of Ren destroyed the Temple, I knew that they would come after you. Your parents refused to let you go to the Jedi Temple, but your existence was known. Your parents agreed for me to take you to a distant world so you would be safe,” Luke, sorrow coloring his words.

Rey looked down at the ground and nodded. That sounded like what Obi-Wan told her.

“And my memories?” she muttered.

Luke looked incredibly guilty at the mention of that.

“I altered your memories so that if someone, a Force-user, made a cursory sweep over your mind, they would not be able to see who you were, what you were.”

Rey did not want to imagine what would have happened if someone came for her when she lived on Jakku. She would have not stood a chance, even with her quarterstaff.

A heavy silence descended. Questions still whirled in her mind, now focusing on Obi-Wan.

She wanted to know the truth. She was just not sure what she was going to hear from Luke. She had a feeling and what Obi-Wan had said only made the feeling stronger.

Rey cleared her throat, trying to collect the courage to say what she wanted to say.

“Master Luke, Obi-Wan told me something strange.”

Luke stared at her, his expression unidentifiable.

“What did he say, my young padawan?”

Rey wiped her hands against her pants, suddenly nervous.

“He said that _our_ family was strong in the Force. What did he mean by that?”

The question hung in the air for several moments, Rey’s heart beating a hole in her chest.

Luke exhaled in a laugh, shaking his head. “Leave it to Obi-Wan to be cryptic.”

“Must be a Jedi Master thing,” Rey returned with a shaky smile.

Luke sat down, leaning his elbows on his knees.

“From what he told me over the years, Obi-Wan had a… _romantic_ relationship with a woman from Mandalore who was killed near the end of the Clone Wars. A child resulted from their union, a boy. He was sent away soon after birth for his safety.”

Rey sat down on her cot, her heart pounding in her chest.

“That boy. Is he my father?”

Luke nodded.

“Your father was not Force-sensitive, nor was your mother. But you, you were strong with the Force, stronger than your grandfather. I wanted you trained at the Temple, but you would have probably died if your parents were not adamant about you staying with them until you were older.”

Rey nodded.

“So, I am Rey…Kenobi?”

The name sounded so right that Rey could not believe that she did not realize it earlier.

Rey Kenobi. She was not some abandoned nobody from Jakku. She had a _name_.

Luke smiled.

“Yes. You are Rey Kenobi. Your bloodline and mine have been intertwined for many years, going back to my father and your grandfather. The Force has plans for both families.”

Rey’s mind wandered to the black-haired grandson of Skywalker, named after her grandfather’s old moniker.

This started long before either of them were born. And she was not sure how this was going to end. But she knew that the two of them had roles to play, for good or ill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -‘Binary Sunset’ plays softly in the distance-   
> First person to correctly guess the Mandalorean woman I was referring to gets my eternal love and affection.  
> I believe that Luke would have changed the Jedi Code from the one of old to something less restrictive when he started up the new Jedi Order (RIP). Hopefully you all liked my take on it!  
> Thank you all for reading! Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated!  
> ~Tiara of Sapphires


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I LIVE!!! I LIIIIIIIVE!!!! Sorry about the wait!  
> I forgot to mention this in the last chapter’s AN, but thank you to all who posted music titles and such. And to all who guessed Satine Kryze (RIP) as Rey’s grandmomma from the last chapter, you are correct!  
> I had a really hard time figuring out what I was going to do with this chapter, but hopefully you all like what I did.   
> Thank you for all of the lovely feedback for the last chapter. You all are amazing.  
> Enjoy!  
> Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars or any of its characters. This is just for my own (twisted) amusement and not for profit.

Rey’s hand was steady as she willed the boulder to rise, reaching into the Force to guide her exercises.

Nostalgically, her mind drifted to her first days on Ahch-To, which consisted largely of meditation and hikes that went on for miles only to end at yet another place to meditate at. Back when levitating and stacking pebbles was a gargantuan task and when the Force was a huge intimidating concept, when she was not sure where she fit in.

Now, she still was not entirely sure where she fit into whatever grand scheme the Force seemed to be guiding her through. But she was getting better at being connected to it, allowing the power to flow through her and guide her.

Without that training, without support of the Force, she surely would have gone insane in the past several days in the wake of the attack.

Luke had allowed her to resume Force exercises and some sparring earlier that morning, a welcome surprise. As much as she disliked the repetitiveness of the past days, pure meditation and mental exercises, her mental defenses were stronger than they had ever been.

The Force-bond she had with Kylo Ren, Ben Solo, whoever he truly was, remained diminished.

It was like a healing wound, something that she felt and tried to ignore to the best of her ability. The bond flared from time to time, not by her doing but by his. Feelings of anger and fear that would make her heart clench and hands shake.

In response, Rey covered her end with memories and thoughts, like breakfast with Luke and meditating facing the sunset and sitting in the rain. She piled on monotonous days on Jakku, an endless loop of scavenging in a decrepit Star Destroyer. Nothing to use against her, everything important and of value to her heavily guarded.

She hardly slept anymore, not trusting the Knight of Ren to stay out of her head when her defenses relaxed. Meditation replaced sleep, allowing herself to sink into the Force, finding a rejuvenating peace. So far, it was working. She missed the sensation of sleep. She missed not feeling so betrayed. She missed being able to speak to Ben Solo, being able to let her Light creep into him.

She could not feel any of the Light that she had felt in him before. Then again, that Light was greatly hidden inside his mind the last time she checked and she would not dare go snooping in the hopes that he could be redeemed.

Rey owed him nothing. Not her friendship, not her affection, not her trust.

And yet…her mind was all too quiet without the grandson of Skywalker sitting in the corner of her mind, vibrating with a power and energy that should have been tempting and corrupting if she did not cling so steadfastly to the Light.

As bad an influence he was, she _missed_ him.

She had told Luke as much, immediately bracing herself for a dressing-down.

“You have compassion for him. That is the way of the Jedi. I am honestly not surprised,” he told Rey, completely taking her off guard.

Compassion. At least he did not call it a foolhardy and childish crush on the Knight.

“He already took advantage of your trust and it almost killed you. You must be cautious, Rey,” Luke warned.

Rey had opened her mouth to tell him that _of course_ she was being cautious when he cut her off, “The Dark Side is good at worming its way into people, making people believe that it is the right path, offering you power and gifts beyond your wildest dreams. It is easy to follow that path, but it is not the right back. Whatever it gives you will never be worth the cost. Never.”

Rey’s fingers twitched at the memory, the boulder slowly rotating, rising higher into the air.

Did Luke ever tell Kylo Ren that, back when he was Ben Solo, before he was corrupted?

She wanted to know. And she did not want to know. She was not sure she wanted a full explanation as to why he fell to the Dark Side.

A dull throbbing formed around her eyes, enough to catch her attention. She checked her mental barriers, seeing that they remained untouched. It was a strange feeling, like the air was compressing against her head, the temperature creeping up.

Rey grit her teeth, focusing on the boulder in front of her, guiding the Force to move it faster, making it spin like a giant top.

A figment of her imagination. She needed to sleep and meditate more. She probably should have picked a smaller boulder.

She was fine.

She was…

She…

The world tilted, browns and greens melting into reds and silvers. A hot and stifling wind crashed over her body, harshly contrasting with the cold breezes of Ahch-To Rey had been becoming used to.

Rey did not know where she was anymore, the forests gone like they never existed. There were black cliffs, volcanic mountains, lava, and a series of metal platforms in the background, sights unlike anything she had seen before. But her attention was drawn to the man in front of her.

For a panicked instant, she thought she was facing at Kylo Ren, but a closer look told her otherwise.

Tan skin, thin scar next to his right eye. His eyes were red-rimmed and spoke of madness. She did not know him, but some foreign voice told her that she did, she knew him well.

Rey could feel her mouth moving, but she could not hear anything coherent, only a loud humming. The man across from her spoke, yelled, but she could not understand him. She was moving, mirroring the man’s movement, eyeing him, trying to predict his movements, until she almost tripped over a woman lying unconscious on the ground. She felt very strange, too small for her own skin one moment and perfectly fine the next.

This woman was beautiful, stomach round with child, a crease in her brow indicating distress. Rey stooped down, lightly pressing her hand against her neck, looking for a pulse. But it was not her hand. This hand was weathered like hers, but larger and more muscular, like that of a man’s.

This was unlike anything she experienced before. She knew Force visions. She knew experiencing memories. But this was like a twisted mix of the two.

Her hands were her hands, they were not her hands. Her clothes were her clothes, they were not her clothes. But the strength was shared, twofold support from the Force.

She gripped a lightsaber she had never seen before, the blue light a stark contrast against the blacks and reds of the planet, as she stood, facing the strange man.

Something happened. Before her eyes, this unknown Force-user _changed_. His features shifted, paler and darker, scar shifting and elongating. Undeniable.

“Kylo Ren,” she breathed.

His mouth curled in a sneer. She could not reach into their Force bond to hear his thoughts, to find an explanation as to why they were there. She was stuck in her own head.

The man charged at her, lightsaber blazing to life, the light blood-red and cracked.

Red flashed blue, unstable and fractured blade turning smooth as the unknown man flickered into the Kylo Ren’s place, just as they met.

They exchanged blows, moving like a dance. Light radiated off of her, Dark radiated off of him, the Force humming and vibrating like a living thing.

 Every couple of seconds, her opponent would change form, Kylo Ren to the unknown man and back again. At least their fighting style stayed consistent or she would not have had a prayer of keeping him, both of them, at bay.

Her hands were sure, skill and the Force guiding her movements. She fought with a precision and strength that she had only dreamt of having, the skill of the man she shared this body with. But her mind was in turmoil. Thoughts that were both her own and not fluttered in her skull. Sorrow, anger, and reluctance.

She did not want to kill him, neither Kylo Ren nor the man he shared his form with. And whoever she was sharing her mind and body with did not want to kill the two either.

As the battle continued, acceptance began to leak in. It was clear to the both of them that they did not have much of a choice. Kill or be killed.

The Dark Side radiated off of her opponent, a heady mixture of hatred and anger that threatened to overtake her. 

Whatever this dream was, she wanted to wake up. She _really_ wanted to wake up. This was unlike any nightmare she had ever experienced and she wanted out.

Time sped forward, leaving Rey mentally reeling, and she was a hairsbreadth from dying, flying on a platform a few feet from the lava’s surface. Her opponent, form morphing between two men, stood on another, glaring at her like she was the most disgusting thing in the galaxy. But it was a temporary breather, the two far enough away from each other so his blade could not touch her.

She felt bone-weary, worse than when she fought Kylo Ren on Starkiller Base. Sweat made her clothes stick to her skin and her muscles ached and her lungs cried for fresh air and grief weighed her down to the point where she just wanted to curl into a ball and die. But coupled with the grief, stronger than that grief, was a determination to live and fight for some sort of future.

Her opponent stayed fixed to tanned skin and absolute rage and the blue lightsaber.

The platforms drifted closer.

Her mouth moved, unbidden, her voice not her own but very familiar. “I have failed you Anakin. I have failed you.”

Oh.

She was fighting Anakin Skywalker, Kylo Ren’s grandfather. Of course. She was blind to not see the resemblance.

His skin paled, hair darkened, scar deepened, turning back into Kylo Ren. Yes, she could see the resemblance.

“I could have taught you, Rey,” he said, not like the plea he gave on Starkiller. It was too late, they both knew it. They chose their sides.

“I want nothing from you!” she yelled, sounding like herself, her voice rough with exhaustion.

Kylo’s face twisted in anger, flickering back to Anakin Skywalker, who immediately launched himself onto her platform.

On the same platform, a small space, each movement threatened to send them spilling into the deadly lava.

They locked blades, red-blue-red-blue against blue. Whoever gained the upper hand would surely end the life of the other.

“No. It cannot end this way,” came the echoing thought.

She broke free, pushing back to give her just enough room. Effortlessly, like a leaf tossed in the wind, she launched backwards in a flip, away from her Dark opponent, only the safe shore next to the lava river.

Black pebbles crunched under her feet, her opponent still on the platform above the lava, his form and his blade still flickering like a defunct lightbulb. Kylo Ren. Anakin Skywalker. Kylo Ren. Anakin Skywalker.

“You have lost, Ben Solo!” she yelled, her own words this time, feeling the sudden urge to taunt the man, call him by his birth name.

“You are a fool, Rey,” Kylo shouted back, spinning his lightsaber in his hand.

He turned into Anakin as his feet left the metal. He leapt at her with a battle cry, mirroring the motion she made seconds earlier, swinging his lightsaber at her head. She ducked, pivoting.

Her blade passed through skin and muscle and bone.

A two-fold scream echoed in her ears as a searing pain rocketed across the dome of her skull, like something integral to her being was ripped from her.

The surroundings became feverishly bright, warping as she turned back towards the lava river. The black pebbles turned to white snow, the temperature dropping like a stone.

Color and sound drained away from her surroundings as Kylo Ren’s lightsaber landed in her free hand, but her eyes only followed his figure as he fell further down the embankment, sliding to a stop a few feet from the edge.

The lava had darkened to a soup of shadows, writhing and alive, whispering in long-dead languages, sucking in all of the surrounding light until there were only three things in the entire galaxy that mattered: the river, Rey, and Kylo Ren.

He looked so vulnerable in his black tunic and pants, his hands ungloved and grabbing uselessly at the ground. His pale skin was unnaturally bright against the pitch darkness, matching the white snow.

There was no Knight of Ren, there was only the scared boy Ben Solo.

Rey stared down at him, paralyzed. Part of her wanted to run away and part of her wanted to run toward him.

Ben lifted up his hand, beseeching. His dark eyes were bright with tears, bright with _fear_ as he slowly slipped closer and closer to the edge. The lapping waves began to look like clawed hands, grasping for its next victim.

“Rey. Please. Help me,” Ben begged, his deep baritone cracking and splintering with panic, barely audible over the unearthly whispering of the river.

She felt like she was burning, her mind being ripped into two different camps: mercy or vengeance. Let him live, let him die. Her body swayed back and forth, torn between decisions, what was right and what was easy.

“Please!” he sobbed, his voice cutting through the air like a knife, his face twisting in a way that spurred Rey into action.

She let the two lightsabers drop to the ground as she lunged forward, reaching for his hand. Their hands met, his large palm almost engulfing hers. Her feet dug into the snow as she prepared to pull him from the embankment. She would carry him if she had to, damn it.

_She was going to save him she was going to save him she was going to--_

An invisible hand, strong and burning hot, grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and yanked her backwards. Ben’s hand tore from her grip. The scene before her dissolved into nothing, trees and brown dirt slamming back into place.

“No!” she screamed, the single syllable ripping from her throat.

Rey’s hands were around her lightsaber, the blue light blazing into her eyes, before she could register it, her body whirling around, looking for the person who tore her away from him. The boulder she was lifting had fallen to the ground, cracked in two.

Gone was the river and gone was Kylo Ren, the Force humming as if agitated around the empty wooded clearing.

Rey’s heart pounded in her throat. Her chest heaved as she struggled to breathe, the ghosts of volcanic ash clinging heavy to her lungs.

Slowly, she moved in a circle, eyes scanning the clearing, looking for an answer, any answer. Looking for a friend, looking for an enemy.

There was nothing but the wind rustling through the trees, Luke’s presence far, far in the distance.

She was alone.

Rey counted to one hundred in Basic and one hundred in Mando’a before she allowed herself to relax, just to be safe. Her finger deactivated the blade and her knees gave out from underneath her. She dropped to the ground, every muscle overcome with soreness, like every hit she took in the vision was real. Sweat dripped down her brow, tears tracing silvery tracks down her cheeks. She swiped her sleeve across her face, hiccupping a sob.

“I don’t—I don’t” she whispered, barely able to form coherent thoughts.

She could not save him. There was Light inside of him, there had to have been, but she could not stop him from being consumed.

Another cry welled up at the thought, which she promptly swallowed.

The temptation to call out to Ben Solo through their Force bond clutched her heart. She wanted to see him and find even a blink of Light in him so she could know that she did not fail.

But she did not know what she would find at the other end of their bond. She could not handle it if she saw only Kylo Ren, only Dark.

“Obi-Wan. _Grandfather_. Please. I need guidance,” she breathed.

She knew that Obi-Wan would be able to give her answers. She sat in silence, reaching out into the Force for the Jedi Master, for her family.

Time passed, formless, as she tried to reach him.

“That was some of your memories, wasn’t it? Fighting Anakin Skywalker on that lava planet,” she rasped as he finally, _finally_ , appeared before her.

The bearded man nodded, soundless.

“But I saw him. I saw Be—Kylo too. Why?”

“I am afraid I cannot say, my child.”

Rey grit her teeth, the lack of an answer stinging.

“Am I supposed to save him, Obi-Wan? Is that what I am supposed to do? I am supposed to try to save the man who killed Han Solo, who killed so many people? Is that why I had that vision? To show me what I must do?”

“I cannot say.”

“Why not?!” she screeched, voice echoing through the clearing, jarring and out-of-place.

“You must let the Force guide you. I cannot interfere with your fate.”

“My fate?! What is that supposed to mean?” she spat, trying to stop her voice from shaking.

Obi-Wan shook his head. “We all have a part to play. I do not know what will happen, but I know that you are an integral part of it.”

He was being cryptic and it drove her crazy. She wanted to know _why_.

“By saving Kylo Ren?”

He did not respond, but her heart told her his answer. Weeks earlier she would have agreed with him wholeheartedly and set out to pull Kylo Ren back into the Light through their Force bond. But this was after the betrayal, after she was almost maddened by his assault. And apparently she could not be assisted.

She could not stop her lip from trembling, eyes fixed to the ground.

“Are you going to leave me? I have to do this alone?” she asked, flinching at the childlike plaintiveness of her voice.

_He was going to leave her. The only family who ever made contact with her, living or dead, and he was not going to stick around for her. Give her this huge task and leave her to deal with it._

“You must not think that, my child. I am not going to leave you. I never have left you.”

She looked up to see Obi-Wan knelt down before her.

“I could not know you in life, my dear. I barely knew my own son before I died and I could not reach him after. I will not leave you, Rey.”

His sorrow was palpable, truly a man who had seen all matters of loss in his life, even in death.

She wished that he was still alive. She wished she could know that there was at least one member of her family alive who cared about her.

“Will you guide me?” she asked, allowing hope into her voice.

“Always, Rey. Always.”

She closed her eyes, letting his presence wash over him, borrowing his strength and making it her own, like how they were connected in the vision. He could not be with her physically, with physical limitations. Maybe she was blessed, able to have her grandfather with her at all times through the Force.

Something seemed to click in her mind.

No, she would not just bring Kylo Ren into the Light, returning Ben Solo. She would continue her grandfather’s legacy: bringing balance to the Force.

But she needed to be ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I broke my pattern. Fight me. Or don’t. Please don’t.  
> So, school went from 0 to 100 REALLY quickly (ahaaaa STEM majors…) so updates are going to slow down more than they already were. Like I probably won’t be writing much this week (but I am a weak piece of crap so I probably will anyway). Sorry about that. Trust me, I hate it more than you do.  
> Things are going to start kicking into high-gear in the next chapters, people! Brace yourselves!   
> I am on Tumblr so hit me up if you want to talk headcanons or to say hi or to yell (gently) at me for not updating! I’m tiaraofreylos.tumblr.com  
> All feedback is appreciated! Like, seriously appreciated. My heart explodes with every notification, trust me.  
> Cheers!  
> ~Tiara of Sapphires


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I suck at updating. Then again, classes. And this was a hard chapter to write. And classes. And other (half-baked) fic ideas…but mostly classes.  
> But we are back to our regularly scheduled programming. Sort of. For now. Since Kylo got the short end of the stick the past few chapters, he gets an extra-long chapter today  
> Thank you to all who gave me feedback for the previous chapter! Keep it coming!  
> Enjoy!  
> Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars or any of its characters. This is just for my own (twisted) amusement and not for profit.

He could feel lips press against the small of his back.

Kisses, soft and warm, pressed against each knob of his spine, traveling up to where his neck met his shoulders.

Kylo was lying on his stomach, head resting on his crossed arms, blind to everything but sensation.

Breath passed over his ear as a chin came down to rest on his shoulder, a lithe frame curling against his side.

“Ben,” came the sigh.

The bed dropped out from underneath him and he was falling.

Black turned to dimly-lit grey, walls closing in around him.

The world was shivering and shaking, one moment from being uprooted and flung into oblivion. Panic settled in his chest, the surroundings so visceral that he was sure that this was actually happening.

He realized that it was happening, or it _did_ , a long time ago. A memory, like one of the memories Rey had allowed him to see when they spoke to each other. It was a memory that when Kylo thought of fear and loneliness in Rey, this would definitely come up.

But this was different.

She, the child that was definitely a young Rey, stared at him, fully aware that he was there, tears dripping from her face.

It was not fully a memory. But it was not the Force-bond. The warmth of her end of the connection was absent, only the cold that permeated this little dwelling.

Kylo could not think on it too long as Rey hiccupped a sob. She was rocking back and forth, a tight, sniveling ball.

“You are afraid,” he said, his voice soft and high-pitched, like a child’s.

He flinched at what an obvious statement he made. Grown, Rey would have probably snapped at him for being so obtuse. But this girl sniffed and nodded.

“I don’t want to die. I want my family,” she whispered, each word quivering like the walls of her makeshift home.

Kylo was not sure how to respond to that.

Her hand, skinny and dirty and scabby, reached for him.

“Will you stay with me?”

She looked so sad and pathetic, reminding him of when he had her in the interrogation room, bound to a chair. Here, she had nothing that he wanted and they were both in peril, the very desert trying to kill them.

Kylo moved to take her hand, noticing that his hand was smaller, too, matching his adolescent-sounding voice.

The roaring of the storm reached a feverish, skull-splitting pitch. Kylo flinched away, grabbing at his ears, trying to block out the roar that turned into the sounds of battle, of blaster fire and lightsabers humming, the Force wildly writhing like a tortured beast inside his head.

“What is that sound?” he yelled, looking for an explanation.

Rey stood, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Death,” she said, flat and emotionless.

She turned and walked to a ragged opening in the AT-AT, ducking out and into the storm.

“Wait, where are you going? It’s too dangerous to go out there!” Kylo yelled, following her out of the opening.

“Rey!” he yelled as he burst outside, expecting to be buffeted by wind and sand.

But there was not a grain of sand in sight. Instead, there were panoramic windows, chairs like little thrones in a semi-circle on the inside, the outside the twilight night was full of activity.

Something told Kylo that he had seen that place before. Coruscant, the Jedi Temple.

Rey turned back toward him, now clean and in Jedi youngling robes. There were other little ones in the room too, hiding behind the chairs.

“Master Skywalker, there are too many of them. What are we going to do?” Rey said, eyes earnest and full of fear. Full of trust.

Something was wrong and she trusted him to help her.

But he wasn’t Master Skywalker. Why did she call him Master Skywalker?

Rey backed away suddenly, fear anew on her face.

In the corner of his eye, he could see a lightsaber in his hand, not red, but blue. It felt unnatural in his hand, as if the Force itself was trying to pull it away from him. He knew whose lightsaber it was, but it was impossible, wasn’t it?

“Ben?” Rey spoke up, voice barely audible over.

No rational thinking crossed his mind as he swung, his body stuck in autopilot.

She died first, as she stumbled backwards, the blade cutting through her shoulder to her heart.

 Life after life, extinguished, tiny screams, choked off. The air smelled of burning clothes, burning flesh. Tiny bodies covered the ground.

While he killed them, there was no panic, no horror that crossed his mind. It was deathly efficient, like a child whipping off the heads of flowers in a field.

He was not always on Coruscant. Sometimes he was in Luke’s Jedi Temple, a red lightsaber biting into innocent flesh, the faces not strange to him but painfully familiar.

But the horror came when it was over, the body of a small girl at his feet, the three buns lined on the back of her head the only indication of who it was.

Kylo wanted to look away. He wanted to close his eyes and pretend that this was all a dream, none of it true. But he knew that this was very real. The younglings on Coruscant, the younglings on Yavin. They were dead.

His eyes would not leave the carnage, his attempts to leave this nightmare futile.

“Look at it! Look at what we have done!” a man’s voice bellowed.

Finally, his feet unstuck from the ground and he staggered back as that strangely familiar voice whispered in his mind “ _what have we done, what have we done, what have we done_ …”

A hand clamped around Kylo’s shoulder and spun him around.

Rey, grown and donning Jedi robes, stared at him with pure sorrow.

“You were supposed to bring balance, Ben.”

Her form flickered for a fraction of a second, someone tall and male taking her place. But she was back before it really registered in his mind.

She let her brown cloak fall from her shoulders and pool at her feet. Her hand went to her side to unclip her lightsaber from her belt, activating it with a deafening _thrum_.

Twin blades, bright blue light washing over her face.

“I will do what I must,” she intoned as she swung the lightsaber at his neck.

Kylo was on his feet, moving his activated lightsaber in a parrying swing, before he was consciously aware of it.

Blood rushed in his ears, drowning out the sound of his crackling lightsaber.

He was alone, red light washing over his quarters. The realization made him shut off his lightsaber. He sat down heavily on the edge of his bed, rubbing his face in his hands.

_Shameful. Cannot tell a dream from reality._

“Grandfather, help me,” he breathed, staring at the melted helmet.

Kylo reached out, looking for the tendrils of the Dark that kept him anchored to the spirit of Darth Vader.

No visions came, no whispers to fortify him. Kylo was stuck, aimless.

Kylo’s dreams had known all kinds of horrors in the recent days. No whispers of the Dark, goading him along the path he walked. Not even the lustful fantasies that left him longing for someone he could not have stayed long enough to properly enjoy them.

He was just so tired. And his life was just getting more and more difficult.

Snoke demanded an in-person meeting soon after Hux contacted him, so Kylo was on his way to make an audience, the _Finalizer_ taking him to a solitary rock on the other side of the Outer Rim where the Force-user dwelled.

Hux, damn him, was not kidding. Snoke did indeed want Kylo to track Rey down. The redhead looked so smug when Kylo rendezvoused with the Star Destroyer, smirking at Kylo like Hux was somehow above him.

One day, Kylo was going to liberate Hux’s head from his shoulders.

The inevitable was coming faster than Kylo had anticipated, his Master’s impatience with him pushing him closer to something that felt like fate.

…

Snoke moved often, never staying on one planet longer than a few standard months. It was either out of fear of being discovered or becoming bored of his surroundings.

Kylo could sense him the moment they dropped out of hyperspace, the Dark Side like a beacon even from miles away. What was once welcoming was not foreboding.

He placed his helmet over his head, allowing the Dark to wash over him, readying him. While Snoke was intimidating as a hologram, he was terrifying in person, the power he surrounded himself with near-suffocating for any person.

The shuttle pilots spoke little on the flight to the surface, only to tell him that it would take so-many minutes before they got to the surface and to warn him of turbulence as they entered the planet’s atmosphere.

If there were issues, they did not speak up, their nervousness over the feared Kylo Ren vibrant through the Force. 

“Good,” Kylo thought. He was not so stupid to Force-choke his pilots mid-flight, but he would let them believe that he would. He could still strike fear in their hearts.

Anger, hate, willingness to serve. He cocooned himself in those emotions, a full embrace of the Dark Side. Snoke would expect nothing less.

It was cold and windy, near barren mountains and a shattered temple the only features of note. There was something markedly unsettling about the place, like the ghosts of something terrible lingered even millennia after it occurred.

Even the Force-blind fools for pilots were unsettled, clearly relieved when Kylo ordered that they stay with the ship after the shaky landing.

He felt watched as he made his way across the courtyard towards the temple, the doors opening with a harsh push through the Force.

Lit by torches, a raised platform at the center, topped with a throne, not unoccupied. That was something to be expected, Snoke allowing himself to be elevated above all other things, like a king or a god. Maybe he fancied himself as one.

Kylo stepped forward until he was a foot from the bottom of the dais and he knelt before his Master.

“How kind of you to meet me at such short notice, Kylo Ren,” Snoke said, gesturing him to stand. “Your report on the scavenger girl.”

Kylo’s teeth ground together in frustration. Of course, he had nothing to report on and he was sure his master knew it.

“She remains unbroken, Master,” he bit out, the voice modulator not hiding his emotion. “She grows in strength and refuses the pull of the Dark Side.”

Snoke pressed his fingertips together. “You have spoken to her?”

Kylo thought back to the last time they spoke, the one and a half sentence-long conversation that ended with her booting him out of her head, the echoing silence and blinding anger that followed.

“No. She has refused to speak to me. She has shut me out of her mind”.

Snoke probed his mind without warning, searching for deceit. It was a common enough occurrence that Kylo was expecting it. He could see his recent memories whizzing by him, the mundane ignored. Snoke was looking for his memories about Rey.

As soon as it started, it ended, leaving Kylo reeling. He grasped at his mental faculties, putting things back in order as Snoke looked vaguely contemplative.

“She believes that the attack through your bond was committed by you and you alone,” Snoke mused.

He could see right through his apprentice, see every fault and flaw and weakness. He knew. Kylo stiffened, a slight twitch.

“Yes, Master.”

It was a simple fact, one that made his teeth grind.

Of course she thought it was him. Of course she did. She had no reason to believe that it was not him. She did not know that her pain was also his pain, that they shared in the same horrific sacrament, that while it was indeed his fault, technically speaking, but he had no desire to hurt her. Selfishly, Kylo hated the fact that she had so little faith in him, that she would not let him explain. But what could he have said that would have made it better?

Snoke leaned forward in his chair. “She has not completely destroyed your bond.”

“No, Master.”

Kylo was not sure if breaking the bond was possible, even if both parties wished it. None of the holocrons, Jedi or Sith, he read ever explained the existence of a ‘Force-bond’, only mentioning it in passing. All he knew about how the bond was formed, what it could do, came from experience. He did not know what would happen if it was destroyed.

“Hm,” Snoke murmured, “I sense that she still harbors some affection for you.”

He did not dispute that fact, he could not. Maybe Snoke was making it up to rile him, to gauge his reaction. He could not hope against hope.

The thought crossed his mind and he realized his mistake as Snoke speared him with his gaze.

“Yes, affection. As _you_ do for her,” he said.

Kylo did not flinch as Snoke’s influence crept over his mind, letting this powerful side of the Force wash over him, feeding into his emotions, injecting poison into his thoughts.

Han Solo was weak. The Skywalkers were weak. His blood made him inherently weak. Kylo Ren, risen from the ashes that was the now-dead Ben Solo, was strength.

Then came the promises. Power, the power that Snoke promised him years ago. He promised that Kylo would fulfill what his grandfather started decades earlier. Kylo would become equal to the greatness of Darth Vader.

The total destruction of the Jedi would lead him to glory.

It was coming. It was just out of his reach. Because of his constant failures and weakness, he was getting further and further from success.

There were two remaining Jedi left in the galaxy: Luke Skywalker and Rey.

When Kylo was done, the Jedi would be extinct. They would turn to the Dark Side or die.

“This girl is a distraction,” Snoke said, rage tinging his words.

This girl is a distraction. Rey is a distraction.

“Your compassion and attraction to her will be your undoing and your destruction, Kylo Ren,” Snoke sneered, spitting out the Knight’s name like he found it disgusting.

Kylo kept his head bowed, barely breathing, waiting. A terrible silence fell as Snoke regarded him.

Finally, the Force user stood and turned his back to Kylo.

“Take five days to prepare. Purge any puerile affection you have for her. Find her. And destroy the Light inside of her.”

Kylo was unprepared for those words, words that seemed to knock the breath out of him. He recoiled from the Dark that his master just instilled in him, like he had pressed his bare hand against a reactor core. Destroy. That was something that came innately to him. But the very idea of intentionally causing her harm…like in his dreams…like what Snoke did to her.

Snoke whipped around with a speed and grace that belied his age, stretching a claw-like hand towards Kylo.

He did not stand a chance, flung off the ground like a rag doll.

His back struck the temple wall with a sickening thud, his body now pinned several feet off the ground, an invisible vice wrapped around his neck. Every fiber of his being wanted to struggle and fight back, cut down the thing that threatened him. If it was anyone else, he would have. But his mind knew better. To struggle meant further punishment. To fight back meant death.

“You foolish, weak boy! She threatens everything you ever built. All that you have done will be for nothing if Luke Skywalker succeeds to train her into a Jedi Knight.”

An iron band stopped the breath in his lungs, a foreign and familiar rage swamping out all coherent thought as Snoke’s rage reached fever pitch.

“Do it, or I will dispose of you and find someone else with the strength to do what needs to be done.”

Kylo struggled to speak, wincing at his obvious weakness, “Master, I do not know where she is. She could be anywhere in the galaxy.”

Snoke scoffed and turned away, letting Kylo drop to the ground.

“You were the top student in Skywalker’s Temple, were you not?” he drawled.

“Yes, Master.”

“Then, I am sure you could find a solution to this… _problem_. You are dismissed.”

…

It did not take a Force sensitive to know that he was a writhing mass of anger and conflict. Everyone gave him a wide berth, mindful that their heads could be rolling on the ground if they somehow found themselves at the brunt of Kylo’s anger. Even Hux did not dare make a smart comment.

The few training rooms on the Star Destroyer were in shambles by the end of the third day after he left Snoke, Kylo’s practicing of his forms often ending with blinding rage and wanton destruction.

The First Order had its benefactors, shady figures and money changing hands on anonymous systems. Hux had seen fit to taunt him, let him pay the price for it and grovel for money himself.

Kylo had more important things to worry about. He could dance around the main problem all he wanted to. He was physically prepared. But Snoke wanted him out and actively looking for Rey by the end of five standard days.

Kylo had two left and he still did not know where Rey was.

The prospect of looking into her mind was now so undesirable and daunting. But the threat of a painful death was a more convincing argument.

He knelt on the ground, clearing his mind for what was to come.

_“The Force shall free me.”_

He was feeling less like his own man and more like a servant with each passing day. But, Kylo did what Snoke told him to do: pushed aside his _puerile affections_ for Rey and eased in.

Her mind was wide open, no walls and barbed wire keeping him out. It had to have been a trap.

There were brief flashes of what she was seeing.

Her hands moved and twitched in the air, pieces of metal coming together to make something powerful. A lightsaber. She was constructing her lightsaber. And her thoughts were so absorbed into what she was doing that she did not sense that he was in her mind. He could take what he wanted.

Kylo wanted to rifle through her thoughts, find what he needed, and leave as soon as possible. But that would only get her attention. She already hated him for what he did not do to her mind. If she knew that he was trying to get her location from her mind, it would serve to only further anger her. He was nestled in her subconscious, surrounded by her. She could crush him, drive him to madness, with little effort.

Slow, delicate, constantly aware of her mind, he looked.

There was a pile of memories surrounding the bond, where he entered her mind. Some of them he was already privy to, the others so insignificant he knew that they were placed there deliberately to block his access to the more important memories.

In any other situation, he might have felt a stab of pride for Rey. She was learning, getting better at protecting her mind. But that left him at a disadvantage.

He could be stuck for a long time, not sure where her location was. He was likely to be blocked from her mind entirely, sooner or later.

He sifted through the nearby memories.

Memories of sand, of Jakku. He ignored those.

Memories of this mystery planet, training with Luke Skywalker. He touched those memories with a strange pang of jealousy. Whether it was for Luke or for Rey, he did not want to know.

He pushed those memories away. It would be useful later, but not what he needed.

Kylo was surrounded by what he did not need.

“Where do I go?” he thought.

Memories of the actual map were likely guarded, hidden in the recesses of her mind, impossible to get to without alerted her.

_“It’s over there, you damn idiot.”_

The shock of the voice nearly tore him out of her mind. The voice from his dreams who whispered in his mind after he slaughtered the children.

Kylo stared at the memory that seemed to will itself towards him.

The swirling blue of the stars. The inside of a ship. The cockpit of the _Millennium Falcon_. The ship that Han Solo had promised him one day. It was going to be his, supposed to be his.

She, Rey, was sitting in his fath— _Han Solo’s_ —chair, Chewbacca in the co-pilot’s seat. Kylo could hear the hyperdrive engines running, Chewbacca’s growling Shyriiwook, Rey’s soft laugh. The normalcy of it was so sickeningly nostalgic.

He remembered sleeping in the bunk, lulled by the hum of the engines. He remembered sitting on his father’s lap, pretending to pilot the ship. His father, telling him that he could be both a pilot and a Jedi someday.

Kylo grit his teeth and looked on the controls of the ship. He _saw_.

On the navi-computer, a series of numbers. The coordinates, the end to the map that sent their paths colliding together in the first place. It was there, laid bare on a seemingly insignificant memory.

Every fiber of his being told him that is was the truth. He knew. He knew where she was.

Now all he had to do was face her.

Kylo retreated from her mind, hoping that she did not notice his intrusion. If he could get that element of surprise, it would give him the edge to do what—what needed to be done.

Victory should have simmered through his veins, knowledge that not only did he know where Rey was, he knew where Luke Skywalker was. He could kill them both.

But the feeling that hollowed out his chest took the bravado and smugness and ground it to dust. He should have felt anything but what he was feeling.

“ _Snoke is using you for your power. When he gets what he wants, he will destroy you._ ”

The words of a dead man echoed softly in his head.

“ _You know it’s true._ ”

The words of a man who knew that he was not going to leave Starkiller alive, a desperate attempt to save himself. To save him.

Something like regret bubbled up, threatening to turn his resolve into mush.

“So what if it is true?” Kylo spat at nothing.

He could not afford regret. It had been months since he killed Han Solo. His body was likely destroyed along with the rest of Starkiller. There was nothing left of Han Solo.

Except for the blood that ran through his veins, something that Kylo wished he could drain from his body.

_Ben Solo is dead._

He could not regret killing all of those Jedi in Luke Skywalker’s temple. He could not regret killing Han Solo. He could not regret whatever he did to that blasted traitor of a Stormtrooper, especially since he deserved it. He could not regret playing his part in hurting Rey, despite the fact a little part of him died as he did it.

_Ben Solo is dead._

Turn her or kill her. The former was impossible for her, the latter nearly impossible for him. He had to do it. Better him than another Knight of Ren. She would know the name of the person who killed her. It would be quick, hopefully painless.

_Ben Solo is dead._

And he repeated that over and over again until the voice began to sound like his own. He let the Dark sweep over him like a cloak, destroying his hesitation.

_Ben Solo is dead. He was weak and foolish. Kylo Ren is alive. And he will finish what Darth Vader started._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The long-awaited, greatly anticipated, fateful meeting approaches!  
> Hit me up on Tumblr at tiaraofreylos!  
> Please give me feedback! All is appreciated and is the best source of motivation for me! (I am also taking prompts for oneshots so if you are so inclined please send them my way!)  
> Cheers!  
> ~Tiara of Sapphires


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damn, Sapph. Back at it again with the super late updates. (I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist the dank memes, please don’t hurt me).  
> Thank you to all who gave me feedback! It is always much appreciated! Please keep it coming! All the more motivation for me to update quickly!  
> Enjoy!  
> Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars or any of its characters. This is just for my own (twisted) amusement and not for profit.

Something dangerous writhed in the corner of her mind and had been for the past day or so. She knew what it was and refused to acknowledge it.

The source was obvious, but the reason was not. She really did not want to see what wreckage Kylo Ren was likely trailing behind him as a result of this blinding anger and confusion. It was times like these that the Force-bond was simply an annoyance.

Luke entering the hut with a bag of…something interrupted her thoughts. He dumped them unceremoniously on the little table in the middle of the room and stepped back as Rey neared.

A bunch of parts, some clear crystals. To most, it would be a pile of junk and some pretty rocks, but Rey knew better.

“Is that?” she breathed.

“It is. These are some of the last kyber crystals salvaged from the Jedi Temple on Ilum.”

“You—you think I am ready to build my own lightsaber.”

“I know you are, Rey.”

She looked at the…mess, really, in front of her. None of the pieces looked like they fit with each other. One of the crystals would go inside the lightsaber hilt, she knew that. But that was it.

“How am I supposed to—?”

“This is something you have to do on your own,” Luke said over his shoulder as he left the hut.

And she was alone. Of course he would leave her to her own devices when it came to something that was of utmost importance to her training.

She knelt in front of the table and picked up two pieces, looking them over, pressing them together at various angles, already becoming irritated.

Rey was a mechanic, damn it. She could build as well as she could take apart.

Hands pressed to her knees, she closed her eyes and focused.

For an undeterminable amount of time, she was floundering inside her mind, not sure what part of herself, what anciently innate wisdom she was supposed to access in order to build a lightsaber. Maybe there was an instruction manual hidden somewhere deep inside her mind.

“Impossible. This is impossible. Luke needs to come back and tell me what I am supposed to do,” she thought.

Her shoulders relaxed and she tried again.

It felt like she was nodding off, the hazy space between asleep and awake, the sensation of falling but she could not jerk herself out of it as her mind fell into itself.

Flashes of color and emotion and a pure energy rushed through her mind as she tapped into something so large and terrifying that she was sure her very existence would be destroyed in the wake of it.

Distantly, she could feel her hands raise, her fingers twitching as bits of metal started to assemble, the tiny clicks of metal on metal.

It felt like everything and nothing, blinding and suffocating.

Rey wanted to recoil from it and end this, but she knew that the emptiness that it would leave would be unbearable. She made herself to hold on, allowing her world to collapse into the Force and her hands, as her lightsaber knit itself together.

Finally, after Force knew how long, the pieces clicked together, a unified piece. And the pressure that she did not realize was building up fell away.

She was getting pulled back into her body, coming back to existence, but she felt something familiar: something blisteringly hot and painfully familiar.

 _“Two days_ ,” Kylo Ren’s voice sounded, “ _I have two days and I finally know where she is.”_

A series of numbers, coordinates, passed between them. And she knew what he knew.

Then, it was over. She was back on Ahch-To, kneeling in the dirt floor of the hut.

Her lightsaber, _her_ lightsaber, a long and simple grey hilt, dropped back onto the table with a thump.

Rey shook where she sat, half from exhaustion and half from the realization, the inevitability of what was to come.

“He was…oh _kriff_.”

They were in trouble. And it was her fault. He knew. And he was coming.

“Luke!” she yelled as she burst from their shared dwelling, running to that familiar Force-signature, leaving her creation behind where it sat inside.

It did not matter what she just did, the lightsaber meant nothing. It did not matter if she constructed it correctly: even though she knew that when she activated it, it would work. Their refuge was gone.

“He is coming. He is coming here,” she said as soon as she saw him. “Ben—Kylo Ren. He knows where we are. He saw the coordinates, he is coming!”

Luke held up his hand, ever the picture of calmness in the wake of Rey’s storm. “Slow down, Rey. Feel the Force around you, let it clear your emotions.”

She took in a few deep breaths, trying to calm her racing heart.

“How did he find out?” he asked after a moment.

Rey was still shaking, “He saw a memory while I was constructing my lightsaber. I should have been able to sense him, but I couldn’t. It’s all my fault!”

Luke sighed heavily through his nose, beginning to walk in the direction of their hut.

“We must leave immediately.”

Rey honestly did not expect that response from him. She was hoping that he would want to stay, so the two of them could take on the Knight of Ren together, to destroy or save him. She knew what she had to do and had hoped that her Master would be a part of it.

“I can’t go,” she said, the words coming unbidden.

Luke froze in his tracks, turning to stare at Rey, his expression an enigma.

“Why?”

She swallowed, the truth like thorns tearing at her throat. Her vision, the one she did not tell Luke about, had meaning. She knew that it was not a feverish fantasy of what was, the vision of Mustafar. It was clear.

“I must face my destiny.”

Luke blinked at her like he did not recognize her, like he was trying to decipher her words to find the hidden meaning. Rey kept her face guarded, not giving away any tells, but she knew that Luke would find the answer he was searching for.

Finally, he spoke up. “No.”

Rey physically jerked in surprise. “No!? What do you mean, ‘no’?” she sputtered.

He shook his head, as if the final decision had been made. “You are not fighting him. Not now. It is out of the question. We must leave before he can intercept us.”

Luke passed by her and started down the path towards the hut without another word as Rey gaped at him.

“I don’t have a choice in this, Luke. I had a vision!” she yelled.

He whipped around, something akin to fear in his eyes.

“What vision?” he whispered.

Rey shrunk a little, immediately regretting not telling Luke about the vision earlier.

“I was on Mustafar. It was like I _was_ my grandfather. And Ben was Anakin Skywalker. We fought, two different battles at the same time, Mustafar and Starkiller. And then…” she trailed off.

“Then?”

Rey blinked, remembering her lightsaber flashing in the air, cutting into him.

“I won,” she whispered, “I beat him, but then...he…he wasn’t Kylo Ren anymore. He was Ben and he was going to fall into the Dark. But, I _saved_ him.”

“At least, I tried to. The vision ended before I knew if I saved him or not. I know it is my destiny to face him again. I need to know if I am going to save him.”

Luke did not speak for almost a minute, staring through Rey like she was not there. Finally, Rey made herself break the silence.

“You have taught me all you can. I have built my own lightsaber. You knew that this was going to happen eventually.”

Luke blinked and sighed. “Perhaps I did. But not this soon.”

It had been months since Starkiller, months since she arrived on Ahch-To. Kylo Ren was coming to Ahch-To. There was no stopping that.

He was contemplative for a moment, then resigned. “I sense that I cannot dissuade you, Rey. The Force pulls you and my nephew together. To what end, I do not know.”

Rey straightened, not entirely sure she should feel happy or upset over Luke’s acceptance of her decision. “I will not fail you, Luke.”

The old Jedi only smiled bitterly and began to walk to the hut. Rey watched him for a moment and followed.

Maybe she was doomed to fail. But she knew this: she was not going down without a fight.

…

Luke was ready to leave within the hour.

He was going to leave the provisions and medical supplies and a communicator with her so, in the event she did survive the fight, she would be able to contact help.

When she asked how he was going to get off the planet and to the Resistance, he smiled wryly and led her to a little inlet where a huge shape hid under a tarp.

Rey, despite the stress or because of it, almost squealed when Luke revealed the X-wing underneath.

She remembered scavenging through X-wing wreckage back on Jakku, wishing that she could find a working one so she could fly through the sky or sell it for enough food packets to sustain her for years.

Another thing that could have been, but never was.

Luke turned to her. “Remember, Rey: know your enemy. My nephew is stronger and more experienced than you in fighting. You must be quicker than him, finding his weak points and exploiting them.”

She remembered striking Kylo Ren on Starkiler. Not Ben, Ben was gone that day. Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber cut into his flesh like it was nothing. With each landed hit, he became angrier and angrier, more clumsy and weak.

“That does not sound like a Jedi way of fighting,” Rey said, smiling weakly.

Luke responded, “When you are fighting to stay alive, there are no Jedi or Sith. There is only the Force. Let it guide you.”

Rey nodded. She felt that when she was backed against the ledge, Kylo one twitch from pushing her into an abyss. She tapped into the Force and she _won_. She saved herself and Finn.

Finn…

She did not even know if Finn was awake. They were so isolated out here, their long-range communicator only to be used in an extreme emergency. And over the many months, there were none. Rey told herself that if something bad had happened to Finn, she would be able to feel it. Her heart told her that he was still alive, alive and well, even, but she did not truly know.

How Luke was able to handle this isolation from everyone he ever cared about for over a decade, she would never know.

“I—if I don’t make it, tell them I am sorry,” she said.

It was a real possibility. She did not deny that fact that the odds were stacked against her. But she was able to defeat the Knight before, she might be able to do it again.

Rey wrapped Luke in a hug before she could talk herself out of it. Luke stiffened and tentatively hugged her back. She gripped onto him tightly, the realization that this might be the last affectionate touch she would ever receive.

“May the Force be with you, Rey.”

Rey sniffed, unable to contain the emotion welling up inside her. “And you, Luke.”

She watched as Luke left, the engine lights of the near-ancient X-wing retreating into the sky until they disappeared from her vision. She felt him make the hyperspace jump to the Resistance base, his presence in the Force suddenly very far away, but still there, nestled in her mind, a beacon of strength.

Rey wished she was going with him. She missed Leia and Chewie and Finn and Poe.

Luke tried to discourage her from making too many attachments. He never outright told her never to have them, but he gently urged her that making attachments only made the life of a Jedi all the more difficult.

She was beginning to see why.

“Wanting is not a sin, Rey. When they get in the way and control you, that is when it becomes a problem,” he had told her.

And Rey wanted many things, most very simple: a family, a home, peace, security. All of the things that she was deprived of in her upbringing on Jakku. All of the things that came into her life within the past year, all slowly but surely being taken away from her.

Clenching her jaw, she turned away from the empty space where the X-wing once was, and headed back towards the hut.

She had to think about anything else but _his_ face, the face of the man who was coming to likely kill her, as she trudged through the underbrush. 

Their paths had become so irreparably intertwined, the two of them thrown into something cosmic and important.

She wished that she could delude herself into thinking that Kylo Ren was pure Dark, irredeemable and evil. It would made it so much easier to fight him and kill him.

But she had seen inside him, his mind and his heart. She had seen something that should be Ben Solo. She had felt that loneliness that resonated so deeply with her, some sort of Light in him that was like hers.

She thought of her vision, how weak and sad he looked lying at the edge of the darkness, at her mercy.

He was a man who had everything, everything that Rey ever wanted, and he had thrown it all away, telling himself that he had nothing. He was a murderer and a coward. He was a boy and a slave. He was all and none of these things.

It was maddeningly frustrating from someone who could often draw the line between bad and good people.

“Things aren’t as clear cut as they seem, Rey.”

The familiar voice pulled her out of her thoughts. She had made it back to the hut and fire pit and was now standing dumbly in the middle of the clearing.

Obi-Wan’s ghost sat on one of the rocks around the fire pit, the one unofficially designated as Luke’s spot. It only made sense to Rey that he would sit there.

Rey croaked, “I am not ready, Grandfather. I am not ready to face him.” 

“Of course you aren't, Rey. No one is ever truly ready to battle someone they care about.” 

That seemed to be the root of her problem. She cared about the man who was coming to kill her. It was against every survival instinct she ever had, but she did.

“Did you feel the same way? When you--,” she trailed off, words not needed. 

Something that Rey could only describe as utter devastation passed over his face, like a cloud drifting in front of the sun, aging him by decades in an instant. But as soon as it came, it was gone.

“Practice your forms, child. I will watch.”

Rey nodded mutely and ducked into the hut to retrieve her newly made lightsaber.

She stared at it as Obi-Wan watched her. The hilt was almost twice the length of any lightsaber she had seen

It came to life in her hands, a beam of brilliant blue light emitted from both ends.

Rey already liked this lightsaber better than Anakin Skywalker's. It felt right and natural in her hands, an extension of herself. In a way, it was. She made it, the Force guiding her to make it, tailored to her needs.

She twirled it, hearing it whirl and hum in the cool air, the light washing across her face. Then, she planted her feet into the ground and began Form I.

_Strike. Parry. Parry. Strike. Parry. Strike. Disarm. Strike._

She acclimated to the blade with ease, to her astonishment. The weaknesses that she would have found in her Form, the ones Luke would try to correct, were greatly diminished. It was as if she was born for this. 

And in only a few days’ time she would have to fight for her life using it. She might even have to kill with it.

She could justify anything that would happen in the fight with self-defense. Her opponent would not have that sort of justification, his intent clear.

Intent. Rey supposed it was what separated the Light Side and Dark Side users. It all came from the Force, the same Force, but how it was used by different individuals made them Light or Dark.

“It’s a messy business, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is.”

…

Meditating and forms. Meditating and forms. That was what occupied her time as Rey waited for the inevitable to come. Obi-Wan disappeared when she was halfway through Form V, but she could not find it within herself to feel offended.

She did not reach out to the Knight in order to dissuade or threaten when she meditated. If he did not know that she knew that he was coming, it may mean the difference between life and death.

He was getting closer. She could feel it, like the tension in the air before a storm. And when she felt his ship drop out of hyperspace, it was as if the ground shifted under her feet. She knew that he felt it as well.

She almost expected him to come with half of the First Order’s fleet behind him to make sure that the job was done.

There was one presence in the shuttle. No backup, just him. It was just going to be the two of them and she was not sure if that was a good or bad thing.

Rey took in a few deep breaths, centering herself to finally see him in person after many months.

The ramp lowered and he was on the beach.

He looked almost exactly how he did the first time they met: cloaked in black. A silvery helmet covered his head and she wanted to rip it off his head, cleave it in two.

His head moved up sharply and he was staring straight at her. The threads of their bond crackled as he tried to connect with her, tried to harm her. But Rey remained steadfast, not allowing him an inch. She made that mistake when she was making her lightsaber and she was not going to do that again.

She turned and moved further up the hillside.

Rey was not going to go down to the beach to meet him. If he was so dead set on fighting her, he was going to come to her.

So she waited, the wind picking up, whipping at her hair and speaking of a storm. But she was the stone in the middle of raging waters, immutable, undisturbed. He would not touch her, mind or body.

She could feel him approaching up the hill, a firestorm unwillingly confined inside a human’s body, tracing the same path she took so many months earlier.

Finally, he reached the top, looking every bit the monster he was when she first met him. Up close, she knew that this helmet was different from the one he originally had, not an exact copy, but close.  It disgusted her. She wanted to reach out and find the Light she had seen in him before, but the wise voice in the back of her head (Obi-Wan) told her that it was a bad idea. If he could bring her to her knees from lightyears away, what could he do to her when they were sharing the same space?

“Where is your Master?” he asked, his tone mocking through the voice modulator, the strange emphasis in the word ‘master’ giving her pause.

“He is gone,” Rey said, proud that her voice did not shake. 

He moved, not towards her, but as if pacing in front of her, not facing her fully. Rey kept one hand hovering over her lightsaber, ready to wield and strike in an instant.

“Fled like a coward? Typical.” 

Her lip twitched, wanting to curl into a sneer. She let the insult roll off of her, despite wanting to defend Luke.

“I pity you, Rey. He was always an awful teacher.”

There was definitely bitterness, if not jealousy, in his voice. Luke did not speak much of him when he was a student of the new Jedi Order. Only that he was powerful, Luke’s best student.

“Actually, he was patient. He taught me the ways of the Force. He did more than you could,” she said, unable to resist the urge to throw that barb at him.

Rey had wondered on more than one occasion what it would have been like if she had accepted his offer to become his student on Starkiller. She wondered if she could have fallen blindly into the Dark, lustful for blood and power, ignorant of her heritage. She wondered if she would have helped him track Luke down and executed him on the rocks of Ahch-To.

No, she told herself. It was not her path. She would not allow that to happen.

“Take off the helmet, Ben” Rey said, softly.

The man hesitated for a moment, she could see the tiniest of jerks that ran through his body, and Rey thought he was going to laugh at her face for making such a request. But his hands went up to the hidden latches in the helmet and with a smooth movement, removed the metal piece. It dropped to the ground with a thump.

He looked awful, pale and drawn, worse than the last time she had seen him. She knew what starved animals looked and behaved and he definitely fit the description.

“Now you see me, Rey. Are you satisfied?” he sneered.

The muscles in her jaw twitched as she clenched her teeth.

She was not sure who she was trying to see, what she was trying to find: Ben Solo, someone to save or Kylo Ren, someone to destroy.

Maybe Ben Solo was dead. Maybe Kylo Ren was dead. Maybe both of them were and there was something newly formed inside of him, neither Light nor Dark. Grey. Nameless and ambiguous and unpredictable. 

“Why are you here?” she asked, afraid of the answer.

He tilted his head, as if she said something confusing. “Isn’t it obvious?”

The words ‘ _turn or die_ ’ sounded in her head. Not her voice, not his either. Someone else, like the echo of an echo.

“You are here for me, but I will not be turned, Ben,” she said. Then she straightened, a sudden swell of pride stiffening her spine. “I am a Jedi.” _Like my grandfather before me._

He nodded, clearly expecting that answer.

Rey would not be turned. And she knew what the other option was. Her hand tightened on her lightsaber, bracing herself for an attack. His hand moved to his side, grabbing that oh-so-familar lightsaber from his belt. He had fixed it, after Rey had all but destroyed it. The blade that stopped Han Solo's heart, cut down Finn.

“Trust me, Rey. I do not want to hurt you,” Kylo said as he activated his lightsaber, the crackle of the blade harsh against her ears.

For a crazy moment, Rey wished that she had her quarterstaff instead of her lightsaber, so she could swing it and break his nose.

Hypocrite. Kriffing hypocrite. She almost trusted him, a while ago. She would have believed him, but that was before…before…

“ _Trust_?” she yelled, something not like anger but more like frustration and sorrow bubbling up.

Her lightsaber came to life in her hands as he lunged for her.

They connected with a mighty crack, their blades locking together, the Force heavy around them, a war between Dark and Light. She hoped that he felt it. She hoped that he felt every ounce of pain she felt over what he did to her.

She pushed at him, disengaging for just long enough that she could put some space between them.

Kylo, he was all Kylo now, swung his lightsaber in an arc, his body feinting left.

She parried the blow, even though the strength behind it almost made her arm go numb. She backed out of reach, then lunged forward, her lightsaber humming as the blades cut into the air where his arm had been an instant before.

“‘Trust me’. What a sick joke,” she thought as they dueled.

It was his doing, his _fault_. She had begun to _like_ him and he did _that_ to her. He did not know what a pathetic mess she was after what happened, shaking like a sapling in a storm. He used something that she cherished against her in the worst way possible. The icy claws tearing at her mind, the ghosts of them haunting her dreams. 

“You come here, out to kill me, and you expect me to trust you? You truly are delusional,” Rey hissed, thrusting at him, her blade almost hitting the spot on his shoulder she hit on Starkiller.

No amount of prodding was going to turn him to the Light. How foolish she was to believe that he could be saved.

“You betrayed my trust. You tried to tear my mind to shreds. Why should I believe a word you say?”

Kylo’s anger spiked, she could feel it as plainly as if it was her own, Force-bond or no. His next blow was a testament to it, his body bearing down on her, making it almost impossible for her to pull away as red and blue locked together once again.

“Believe it or not, Rey, it was not my _fucking_ idea to do that to you,” he snarled in her face.

Now, it was his turn to disengage, to put space between them, staring at her with a heated, inscrutable expression, body tense like an animal waiting to strike again.

“And they say _I’m_ blinded by anger,” he scoffed.

His chest, like hers, heaved from the exertion. How long had they been fighting?

Rey almost opened her mouth to refute his words, but sound choked itself off before it could escape her lips. It was not the pure vitriol of his words that gave her pause, but the fact that it felt like something integral that had been missing suddenly revealed itself to her.

“You know the truth, Rey. It was not my fault.”

She did, didn’t she? The tiny voice in her head, the one that told her that he would never have done something like that to her, at least not wittingly, was correct? Against all of the evidence that it was his idea and his fault?

“Whose fault is it, then?” she asked, feeling a bit dazed.

He sighed, something like regret coloring his words. “Snoke. He knew of our Force bond and exploited it. I felt everything you did, Rey. I did not want it to happen.”

Oh.

She could see it: him, curled on the ground, writhing in agony, a shell of a man standing over him, pushing a malevolent power against him. But he would not have had a kind hand to tend to him during the hours of agony like she had Luke. He dealt with the pain alone.

Rey breathed, “Why didn’t you fight back?”

He had his lightsaber, he had all of that power and he just allowed Snoke to do this to him, to the two of them.

Kylo grit his teeth, anger, maybe _fear_ , dissipating the regret in his eyes. “He would have killed me if I did, you fool! He was inside my mind and could have crushed it like it was nothing.”

 “And I take it he ordered that you come and kill me,” she rasped.

He did not say anything, so she took that as a confirmation.

She pressed further, unwilling to let this tiny window of opportunity to pass her by. “You are no more than his slave, his disposable puppet. Do you not realize that? He was willing to torture you and for what? To get at me?”

And Kylo did not dispute that fact either, which only served to infuriate her more. He did not care about his life or his freedom. He was going to let Snoke pull the strings until he either died or ceased being useful. Why was he incapable of separating himself from that? What did Snoke offer him, what great reward did the Dark Side offer him in exchange for his soul?

At that moment, they were at an impasse, one staring at the other, neither willing to back down, neither willing to make the first move.

His face slackened with some sort of realization. At the same time, she felt something, malevolent and vaguely-familiar, like the memory of a memory.

Daring to let her guard down, Rey looked over her shoulder to see two ships approaching from the horizon.

“What did you do?” she yelled, turning back to Kylo, betrayal flaring anew.

This enigma of a man was going to actually kill her one day.

Kylo blinked at her, surprise naked on his face. “I didn’t do anything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cha!  
> Prepare for another super long distance between this update and the next because…finals are happening next week…and I have other WIPs…  
> All feedback is appreciated and loved! It is a huge motivation for me!  
> Hit me up here! [tiaraofreylos.tumblr.com](tiaraofreylos.tumblr.com)  
> Cheers!  
> ~Tiara of Sapphires


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUESS WHO’S BACK. BACK AGAIN.  
> Thank you as well to all who gave me feedback! You all are the best. And sorry it took me months to update, but another fandom grabbed my attention and life just sort of happened.  
> Enjoy!  
> Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars or any of its characters. This is just for my own (twisted) amusement and not for profit.

This day was getting worse and worse by the minute. Then again, if he was being honest with himself, everything in Kylo’s life had been making a rapid descent into a bottomless pit since he took up his grandfather’s mantle under Snoke.

His grandfather’s mantle…but was it really? Or was it what Snoke had led him to believe?

He didn’t know anymore. He really didn’t.

Once he had the coordinates, he spent hours on end preparing himself.

Ideally, self-flagellation would have helped him tap into the Dark Side. Pain fed into power. But the battle on _Starkiller_ told him that he needed to be in top physical condition to successfully defeat Rey. Meditation and training did its job.

He tried to purge himself of this sick and corrupting puppy love. He tried. Force knew he tried. But there was a kinship and this gods-awful affection for her that he couldn’t shake. He told himself it was misplaced guilt and that it meant nothing.

If Skywalker had honed the raw potential Rey had, this fight wouldn’t be an easy one. Not that he was really expecting it to be. Even caught by surprise, Rey would be a powerful opponent. He would be a fool to underestimate her.

It would be even worse if Luke Skywalker rose from his cowardice to fight his nephew. It was a fool’s errand, coming here. Snoke was setting him up to fail.

That much was clear as soon as he reached Ahch-To. He sensed two things. There was Rey, bright and conscious and _searching for him_ …and he couldn’t feel Luke.

She had known that he was coming to Ahch-To. She had warned Luke Skywalker and the Jedi had fled. All of the work and time spent trying to find Skywalker, all of the blood on his hands that he would never be able to wash off, gone to waste. Again.

The fact that Rey was still there brought him little consolation. She was ready for him. Of course she was ready. Her mind was not weakened by shock and fear. Even her surface thoughts were hidden from him.

Why had he not foreseen this? How could he not have known? He had walked into this, thinking he had the element of surprise. But he had walked in blind.

Her lightsaber was flawlessly built: double-bladed with blue crystals. He could have taunted her that a Sith Lord once had a lightsaber like hers, but he couldn’t find the energy.

He wanted to pretend that this fight was the same as that on _Starkiller_. But it wasn’t. The setting was different. Their blades were different. _They_ were different.

She was strong, moving with a fluid grace. It was so unlike what he remembered, with an almost bitter nostalgia, from their fight on _Starkiller_. Back then, it had been a frantic fight, pure panic on her part. None of that was there; not anymore. If she had been his student, he would have been proud.

“ _You need a teacher. I can show you the ways of the Force.”_

Ah, if only.

She was angry, too. He could have tapped into that anger, maybe found a way to seduce her to the Dark again. But this anger seemed so righteous and removed and controlled that he couldn’t use it against her even if he wished it. It didn’t blind her.

At least she had the decency to look chastised when she realized the truth, when she realized that it was Snoke and only Snoke who had attacked her through their Force-bond. Rey had seemed to soften when she learned that Kylo had also been hurting while she was hurting. The incident that had brought them both so much pain and almost separated them permanently was out in the air.

And then her anger flared again as two dark spots cut through the air, obvious against the cloudy grey background.

They just stood there, the heat of battle simmering in the air, Kylo feeling like the rug had been pulled out from under his feet and Rey looking absolutely enraged. She could’ve cut him down at any time, and he would’ve let her. But, he knew and she probably knew that killing him was a death sentence for her.

This wasn’t right. He was supposed to do this alone. He was supposed to be the one to kill Rey—even though he didn’t _really_ want to—maybe even Luke Skywalker.

It was his glory, his destiny.

What were the Knights of Ren doing here?

Were they to help him? Provide support after Kylo had weakened the Jedi? It was only logical, but Kylo knew that he would have been told about this plan before he had disembarked from the _Finalizer_.

No, _he_ was Master of the Knights. He wouldn’t have just been _told_ of the plan; he would have made the plan to begin with. They were at his beck and call and were ordered not to interfere unless Kylo demanded it.

This was unexpected. This wasn’t how it worked. How it was _supposed_ to work.

This was wrong. Something was very wrong.

And of course Rey had to look at him like it was all his fault, like it was his plan all along. Like she was expecting him to do something underhanded like this.

He almost wished it was. That would have meant that he knew what was going on. He was just as confused as she was, powerless in this decision.

Why? He couldn’t understand. Why were they here?

“ _You’ve been betrayed,_ ” a sing-song voice taunted in his head.

The glaring obviousness of the situation hit him with full force.

Of course.

Had Snoke truly gotten tired of his weakness and decided that it was time for him to die? He was to die by an underhanded move, not even executed at Snoke’s hand? Kylo had expected his death to be carried out by Snoke personally, his blood running red before one of the thrones Snoke always elevated himself onto.

But he was being denied even that.

After all that he had done for his Master: all of the killing and the lying and the pain. All of it, years and years, culminated in this one moment.

This was his fate? This was the glory the Dark Side had promised him?

No. This wasn’t happening. He wouldn’t allow it.

Gritting his teeth, he took stock of his surroundings. He also kept an eye on Rey, who was glaring at him, neither fleeing nor attacking.

They were exposed on the cliff side, the ships moments away from being right on top of them. The Knights might not even bother with landing; they could just fire some missiles and blow them both away.

Kylo was sure that he would be able to sense the moment that decision was made, but he wasn’t sure if he could get the two of them out of the way in time. If they didn’t kill them outright, they could destroy his ship and hunt them down like animals.

But even as he thought it, he knew that the Knights of Ren would see fit to kill them both face-to-face. They would land on the beach as he fought Rey, weakening her. And then they would fall on the both of them—a surprise attack. The blood of the Force-users would paint the Knights’ weapons. They were treacherous, but they weren’t cowards. Years ago, they had fallen upon Luke’s Jedi Temple and killed everyone there, face-to-face. There was no reason they wouldn’t do so again.

It was a brilliant ruse, if that voice in Kylo’s head had not told him that something was wrong, warning him to the plot.

They were both going to die if the Knights—and Snoke—had their way.

“Rey,” he croaked, his throat working around the word.

Her eyes widened.

“Rey, listen to me. We need to look like we are fighting.”

The shock disappeared, replaced with suspicion. Rey arched an eyebrow. “Were we not doing that just now?”

_There_ was the easy banter. If only it were under better circumstances.

“We need to look like we are fighting, but not actually fight. We need to put on a show for them.”

Kylo looked up to see the ships getting closer and closer. Panic spiked through him as their window of opportunity got smaller and smaller. They needed to act now or they were going to get blown off the cliff side.

“Play along,” he growled, losing his patience, “or they’re going to kill us both.”

There was Rey’s anger again. This time it was more palpable and her countenance darkened with increased suspicion.

“Why would they kill you? You’re with them,” she spat.

Kylo clenched his jaw, the hilt of his lightsaber biting into the leather covering his hand.

“I’ve outlived my usefulness,” he muttered.

If there was pity in her gaze, he didn’t acknowledge it.

“Why should I trust you?”

Force, they were both going to die if she didn’t listen to him. Neither could win against at least half a dozen Knights without the other.

“You shouldn’t. But the Knights are going to kill us if we don’t work together.”

* * *

He put the helmet on over his face and brandished his lightsaber.

“Remember, we’re putting on a show,” he jabbed. “Don’t actually try to kill me.”

Rey sneered at him.

“I know that.”

She spun her lightsaber, almost leisurely.

Kylo stepped forward, swinging his lightsaber.  Rey stepped to meet him.

It was almost _playful_ how they sparred. Like the fight they were having only minutes earlier had never happened. Like they were apprentices, learning their forms. In another life, things could have been like this.

The ships passed over their heads, not firing, but slowing down. They were going to land on the beach, alongside Kylo’s ship.

So far, so good.

“When they get up here, let me disarm you,” Kylo instructed. “Pretend that you’ve given up.”

It didn’t take their Force-bond to know that she really didn’t like that idea. But she didn’t protest.

Just as the first Knight’s head poked over the curve of the hill, Kylo thrust his lightsaber out, twisting in a simple disarming maneuver.

Her grip was loose, so her lightsaber was knocked out of her hand with ease, clattering to the ground.

“No!” Rey yelled, despair that he knew was false leaking into her voice.

Good. Keep up the act.

Kylo reached out with the Force, curling around the lightsaber, calling it into his hand. The lightsaber _felt_ like Rey, like a little piece of her was hidden inside the hilt.

He glanced back to look at his comrades, who had finally made their way to the clearing.

He knew each Knight—all eight of them—by name and he knew that they were some of the most ruthless Knights ever to come out of their cult. Snoke knew that he couldn’t take chances by sending weaklings to potentially battle both a fledgling Jedi and a Knight of Ren.

But, not _just_ a Knight of Ren. Kylo was Vader’s heir; he was the First Knight.

Kylo’s hand tightened around his lightsaber.

Oh, how the tables had turned. Years ago, it was Kylo who had led the Knights of Ren to Skywalker’s Jedi Temple to slaughter his Order. Now these Knights came to these ruins, the first Jedi Temple, to kill both him and Rey.

A collection of species, all twisted and dark and willing to kill. Kylo had his own hand in training some of them, taking the good and the light inside each of them and crushing it.

Some of them might relish in the idea of killing him. It wasn’t a secret that some Knights resented having to be at the First Order’s beck and call, and Kylo was practically the First Order’s poster boy.

If he went through with this, he would have no flag. Not a Knight of Ren or a Jedi. Not First Order or Resistance.

“Kylo Ren, finish her,” one of the Knights growled, distorted by their helmet.

He could do it. He could forsake their agreement and kill her right then and there. She was defenseless; any attempt at attacking him would be useless. He could do it.

Drive the red blade into her chest and watch the light leave her eyes.

But he didn’t want to. He didn’t have to. His master, the one who gave the order to kill her, had abandoned him, disavowed him.

Rey, neither friend nor foe now, was at his mercy.

And, once again, he had a choice.

The planet seemed to hold its breath, waiting for him to make his choice.

He stepped forward, one step, two steps.

He tossed her the lightsaber and the fate of the galaxy shifted.

* * *

* * *

* * *

This was insanity, utter insanity.

Rey could only hope that the Dark that surrounded him was just an act. If she was wrong, Luke would once again become the last Jedi, and that would likely destroy him.

She kept up the act, stiff, watching, counting. Eight Knights, eight enemies that she and Kylo would have to kill—if not immobilize—before getting off of the planet.

But that was provided Kylo was telling the truth. He had her lightsaber in his hand. She was defenseless.

The Knight goaded him on and he stepped forward.

Force, it was over. Kylo was going to kill her.

She was going to die.

Then, there was a subtle shift in the Force, small and yet planet-shaking at the same time.

Oh.

His wrist twitched and he tossed her lightsaber at her.

She lunged forward to meet it. Her lightsaber hummed to life as soon as it hit her hands.

Kylo whipped around with a speed that seemed almost inhuman, swinging his lightsaber up in an arc and back down. The nearest Knight fell almost instantly.

Rey covered his flank with an ease as if they had done this a thousand times. She parried an axe, sawing it off at the handle, and plunged one end of her lightsaber into the owner’s chest.

The other six Knights had backed away, the element of surprise evaporating.

“Traitor!” one of the Knights bellowed.

There was a moment of quiet, each side sizing the other up.

Then it was chaos, a blur of action. Her body was set on autopilot, but she still stayed very much aware of the man fighting beside her.

They were fighting to the death, for survival. It didn’t feel like the fight on _Starkiller_ , where both sides were tired and weary and, in Kylo’s case, not truly in the battle.

She could feel the Force guiding her movements, helping her find openings and warning her at just the right time. It felt like her grandfather was there, but it also felt like someone else was there too, in addition to that familiar presence. Maybe it was the spirit of someone that Kylo had brought to Ahch-To.

Rey had a feeling who it was.

At one point, Kylo was brought to the ground by a Trandoshan whose skill was obviously hand-to-hand combat, knocking Kylo’s legs out from under him.

Rey decapitated the Trandoshan before he could land another blow.

The numbers dwindled until finally it was two against two.

Her opponent, a male Zygerrian, looked all too happy to be fighting a Jedi, twirling a broadsword in his hand.

It was almost over. Kylo was making short work of the other Knight.

Rey looked for an opening and struck.

He saw it coming. He side-stepped and swiped out and up.

The blade bit into her side, the force of the blow spinning her around and sending her face-first onto the ground.

There was an instant of dazed disorientation, overriding the pain.

She whipped around to see the red lightsaber blade piece the Knight’s chest as he loomed over her. The Knight gave a pained howl and fell to the ground beside her, dead.

And the clearing was quiet, save for the roar of the ocean and the hum and crackle of Kylo’s lightsaber. He deactivated it and stretched out his hand, which she gratefully took. He saved her life, again.

“Are you okay?” he asked. His voice was muffled and distorted by the helmet, but she could hear the concern there.

Rey nodded and glanced down at her hip. There was a shallow gash there, leaking blood into the grey of her clothes.

“Just a scratch,” she muttered.

She stooped down to retrieve her cloak and winced when it aggravated the wound.

“Where do we go?” she asked, not looking at him.

Kylo removed his helmet and let it drop to the ground again. His eyes were wild and his hair was damp with sweat, plastered around his face.

Rey felt a surge of affection for him that almost bowled her over

“We need to get off the planet. They will send reinforcements.”

“And then what?”

He shook his head.

“We’ll figure something out.”

Rey opened her mouth, about to suggest that they find the Resistance, but she shut it instead.

No, they would deal with _that_ —the Resistance, the General—later. They were both tired and injured. They need to get to neutral space and _then_ form a plan.

“We’ll figure something out,” Rey echoed, smiling softly.

The gash on her side stung with each movement as they descended the steps, towards his ship.

It was amazing how neither of them had lost any limbs in the process of the fight.

Winds whipped at them the moment they stepped onto the sand.

“After you,” Kylo gestured.

Rey rolled her eyes.

“Gentleman,” she murmured.

Kylo brushed past her to reach the pilot seat as she rummaged for the bacta kit.

She sat in the copilot seat, the kit in her lap. There would be time for proper medical attention later. Now, they needed to get moving.  But, when the ship’s engine only idled, not rising from the beachside, Rey looked over to the pilot’s seat.

Kylo sat there, staring at her and, at the same time, staring right through her.

“Weren’t we in a hurry?” Rey asked.

Kylo blinked, as if startled.

“Right.”

The engine hummed to life and within minutes they were out of Ahch-To’s atmosphere.

“Well, I guess pick a planet where the First Order isn’t around,” Rey mused. “Neutral space.”

“Right.”

Light drew bluish paths as they jumped to hyperspace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that’s all, folks! Sorry it took forever for me to update/finish and sorry that I’m ending it here, but the spark just sort of went out for me regarding this fic, for various reasons. At least, I didn’t end it in a real cliffhanger or anything like that.  
> Thank you so much to Juulna for beta-ing this fic!  
> Thank you so much to all who commented, kudos, favorited, and followed this fic. You have no idea how much that means to me.  
> Cheers!  
> ~Tiara of Sapphires


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